Light in the Darkest Corners
by AddisonRules
Summary: Jo faces every cop's worst nightmare, and Mac and the team are there to stand by her side through it all. Heavy angst, a character death, and some ugly imagery, which is why I chose the T rating.
1. Chapter 1

The call went over the radio at just after 12:30 a.m., when Jo Danville had been certain her week was finally over. It had even ended on a high note, Friday rolling into the wee hours of Saturday as she laughed over a story Mac had shared about the first time he drank a beer in front of his father. It had been one of their late dinners, one of those nights when she'd charmed him out of the lab knowing that if she didn't, he'd work till morning and barely notice.

There were more and more of those nights shared between them lately, but she still wasn't sure if Mac was saying yes because he wanted the company or because, like her, he felt that heady mix of attraction, fear, and affection that were making her more certain every day she was falling in love.

Sometimes she was sure he felt it; and other times, when he'd pass up a chance to take her hand or make eye contact, Jo wondered if what he felt was the inevitability of having to give her the "just friends" speech.

Tonight when she'd said good-bye to him, there had been this moment when it seemed like one of them might finally take that last little step to either start things or end them... but then Mac's cell phone had rung, and the spell had broken, and Jo had walked away with a wave as he answered.

She knew her weekend free to soak in the tub, sleep in, and have time for both a massage and yoga-courtesy of Ellie's friend Brianna who had invited her for the whole President's Day weekend-would be spent replaying that moment, musing over the "what ifs" and "what might still be possibles," which should've made her feel like a first-rate loser, but really just made her feel more hopeful than anything unrelated to her children had in years.

But the self-indulgence would have to wait until after one more work-related delay. A fire in a warehouse near NYU that was notorious for college parties had left the fire department with an arson investigation and a half-dozen bodies at least. Jo had no doubt that Mac Taylor was en route to the scene himself, his promise to go home and get some sleep forgotten in his never ending quest to try and right every wrong he came across.

It drove her nuts that he ran himself so ragged, and yet it was one of the things that she adored about him, too. That need for there to be closure, for someone to truly be brought to justice... it pushed him to his limits, often beyond them, and yet it was what made Mac Taylor who he was, and it sometimes left her in awe of him.

Not that she'd ever tell him that. Jo knew that she was the only one in the lab who had the seniority on the job and off to try to counter the workaholic in Mac, to point out the need for basics like food, sleep, and an occasional attempt at a real life.

The crime scene was already active and crowded as she pulled up, surveying the large number of fire trucks still on site, the ambulances that remained treating the less wounded survivors, and the black-and-whites that were already busy working crowd control. Jo grabbed her kit, locked the car, and shoved her keys in her pocket before she began pulling a set of gloves on as she approached the still smoldering warehouse.

"Ma'am, this front half of the building's been cleared for your team," the fire captain informed her. "We're still working on some hazard clearance in the rear."

"Any idea how many people made it out?"

"Rough estimate is thirty. Six transported to the hospital, the rest banged up with everything from smoke inhalation to minor burns."

"How many fatalities?" she asked.

"At least three up here. They think four in the back, but it's still hard to say. Both of the main exits were blocked initially. Some kind of wooden barricades that partially burned in the fire themselves. Most of the kids who made it got out the side windows."

She nodded and headed inside, stepping carefully not just for safety, but to make sure she wasn't trampling over any key evidence. Setting her kit down, she pulled out a camera and began by taking photographs, archiving everything about the victims and where and how they lay before they were touched. She was just getting started when a familiar gravely voice called out to her.

"So is it my turn to lecture you on going home?"

Despite the gruesome scene, Jo caught Mac smiling at her for just a moment before the horror that had happened a few hours earlier caused his face to fall.

"Blocked doors, accelerant-someone wanted to cause a lot of death here tonight."

"Thank God someone got those windows pushed out, or we'd have a lot more fatalities," she stated simply, a slight shudder running through her.

"Since we can't go to the back yet, I'll start scouting trace while you finish the photos."

Jo nodded her agreement to Mac's plan and returned to the task at hand. After documenting the position and surroundings of the victim near the front door, she moved to the two victims who were lying together near the windows that so many others had escaped from. The victim on the bottom was female, obvious from her still partially intact high heels and the long hairs that had burned and scattered around her head. The second victim appeared to be male, and from his position, it looked as if he'd been trying to shield the female from something, likely either the fire or the desperate partygoers trying to escape.

It wasn't until she moved in to get closer shots for possible identification purposes, in case the bodies held no I.D.s, that she saw it... the gold butterfly charm bracelet on the left wrist of the female victim-charred and twisted, but still recognizable.

Jo had helped picked that bracelet out when Tyler told her that he "couldn't go to Natalie's birthday party empty-handed."

Her mind went into protection mode immediately, pushing away the unthinkable. This was New York City, and they'd gotten the bracelet at a big department store. It was hardly one of a kind, and it was popular with college girls-the sales lady had told them so. And what were the chances? What were the awful chances that she'd walk into a crime scene and...

She set the camera down and moved to the male body. When she'd heard the radio call, Jo had almost texted him, just to reassure herself that he was somewhere else-anywhere else-than at the ill-fated party. After all, Tyler's apartment was in the East Village, too. It wasn't impossible. But then she'd imagined him laughing at her for being overprotective, teasing her for months about how she loved that modern technology allowed her to mother him no matter where he was.

Her gloved hands traced lightly over the body, looking for something to put her mind at ease while she tried to stay cognizant of her responsibilities as a CSI. Tyler was a legal adult now, a grown man old enough to vote; she didn't know half of what he did when he wasn't in school. He could be anywhere, and the truth was, overprotective mother bear or no, there was a limit to the access he gave her.

Her hand stopped as she touched something that could be a wallet. It was charred, burned into a heap of fabric and skin melted together, but she managed to pry the two sides apart, to see the charred remnants of the New York State driver's license that lay inside.

"Jo?"

The breath left her body, and even though she heard Mac call her name, she couldn't respond, couldn't even turn to see him. Her eyes could only shift from the horrible bit of proof in her hand to the body that lay just in front of her, face down, arm still resting over the person he had so wanted to protect, a sweet girl named Natalie who he'd met in Chemistry lab and couldn't stop talking about.

"Jo? What is it?"

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't force her body to take in air, and she couldn't stop her eyes from shifting back and forth. Was she hoping that something would be different the next time, that another name or face would be on the melted I.D. and end the nightmare?

"Jo!"

His hands were on her now, and Mac turned her toward him, roughly, his concern getting the better of him. She saw him then as he tore her away from the body just enough that it made her eyes shift, but she still couldn't breathe, still couldn't find any air, and her body began to shake in his hold.

"Jo, you have to breathe. Jo, breathe!"

He shook her, and when it didn't work, he shook her again. And when that still got no response from her body, as the edges of her world began to darken and fade from the deprivation of oxygen, she felt his arms wrap around her body.

"You have to breathe. Damn it, Jo, breathe!"

He jerked her up as he brought them both to their feet, and the movement was enough to break her body's paralysis and her throat burned as she choked in air. Her left hand gripped his shirt as Mac lowered them back down and set her away from him just enough so he could see her face.

"What happened? What is it?"

Her right hand still held the awful evidence, but as he asked, as her brain tried to process the words to answer, it fell free and smacked against the floor. Mac held her steady against him as he reached down and picked it up with one hand, his fingers working the bitter remnant open.

Jo watched his face, praying something there would tell her she was having a delusion, that some awful sickness had overtaken her and this vision was the result. But tears pooled in his eyes the moment he took in the contents of the once pristine Italian leather wallet that she had given her son as a congratulations gift for getting into NYU.

"Oh, my God. Oh, Jo."

Her hand gripped his shirt tighter as Mac pulled her against him, his other arm wrapping back around her. She heard another voice, felt the vibration in Mac's chest as he responded to whoever else had come, and then she felt her body leave the ground as he lifted her up and moved her away from the terrible place where her world had imploded.

* * *

><p>"I need one of those buses now!"<p>

Mac realized he was screaming as if she'd been shot, as if blood was flowing out and stealing her life away, but this felt worse than that, and he knew she was in shock. Any doubt he'd had after the breathing incident was erased when she had no reaction to him picking her up and carrying her away from the body... from Tyler. He'd half expected her to fight him, to refuse to leave her son even though she was powerless to help him. But Jo had done no fighting, offered no refusal. Instead she lay slack against him, cradled against his chest, and as broken as he'd ever seen a human being in his life.

As the paramedics moved one of the ambulances closer to the scene, patrol officers leading them through, Mac saw Flack and Hawkes jump out of their just parked vehicle and race toward them.

"Mac, what happened?" Sheldon asked, immediately shifting into doctor mode.

"Shock. I... she couldn't breathe, and now she can't get a normal respiration."

He stopped where they were and laid Jo on the ground, her had in his lap as Sheldon began to check her over. The paramedics joined them a beat later, bringing a gurney, and soon they were moving her to the open ambulance doors, Sheldon climbing inside, barking out orders that the medics followed methodically.

"Mac, what... what the hell happened?"

Don's hand fell on his shoulder, and as Mac looked up at his friend, he felt a wave of stress crash into him. He had no idea how much time had passed since he'd noticed Jo staring so intently at something she held out of his sight. It was probably no more than a minute, maybe two. But that was all it had taken for him to realize that everything had changed, not just for Jo, but all the people who cared for her, who would have to live through this pain with her.

"Tyler..." he said, his voice breaking with the effort to give voice to the unfathomable. "Tyler's inside. Jo found his body."

"That's..." Don stumbled back, stunned. "No, that's... that's impossible. It has to be a mistake."

Mac looked at him and shook his head.

"I saw the I.D. I... I wish to God it were a mistake, Don, but... you didn't see her face. It's him."

He had ordered a patrol officer who'd come over to see if they needed help to stand watch over the bodies by the window, to make sure no one else came near them, and though everything in Mac wanted to walk to that ambulance, he knew that he had to go and finish the work Jo had started so that the identification was definite.

"Lindsay and Danny are on the way?"

Don nodded, and Mac motioned with his head toward the vehicle that now held Jo out of his view.

"Tell Hawkes to stay with her. I... I need to go back in there."

Flack turned his eyes to the burned out building and let out a long, slow breath.

"How in God's name did this happen?"

And this time Mac was the one with the comforting hand for his friend's shoulder.

"We'll find out, Don. We'll find out."

Flack nodded and then turned toward the ambulance, and as he stepped away, Mac willed himself to walk back inside the warehouse.

Danny and Lindsay arrived minutes later, their faces as they joined him inside telling Mac that they knew the awful news. Together, they finished the photographs, collected trace, and Mac assembled DNA samples from each victim so that Sid could confirm the identities of their victims before any other parents had their worlds torn apart.

The back area of the warehouse was finally cleared, and the team repeated their work there, the total number of fatalities rising to eight as they found five more bodies. Six of the victims had tentative identifications of some sort-driver's licenses or school I.D.s found on the bodies-but the others would require dental or DNA matches. Mac's stomach knotted at the idea of all the heartbreak this one night would cause.

"Mac."

Sheldon's arrival surprised him, and he stood, placing the last DNA packet in his kit.

"Is she alone?"

"Flack's with her, and the paramedics. She came around and her vitals are stable. And she won't let them transport her. She wants to talk to you."

Leaning down, Mac closed his kit and stood, the weight of it almost toppling him. Three hands reached out to steady him, and he gratefully looked at each of his colleagues... at his family.

"We'll finish up here," Danny said. "And you tell Jo we'll, uh... we'll ride back with Tyler ourselves."

"Yeah," Hawkes added, "We'll make sure that Sid and our team are the only ones who go near him."

Lindsay's hand touched down on Mac's arm then, and he looked toward her.

"And tell her we're here, anything she needs."

Mac smiled slightly, touched as always by the strength these people showed in the face of tragedy, even when it had devastated them.

"She knows that, but I'll tell her anyway. Thank you all."

She was sitting on the back ledge of the ambulance, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. As he neared, Flack stood up from where he sat beside her and came forward.

"I've got every man I could find canvassing. I'll start pulling info on the vics as soon as you're clear to..."

He looked back over his shoulder at Jo for a moment before his eyes returned to Mac's.

"I don't know how she's still functioning. She called some friends of hers at the FBI to have them get ahold of Russ. He's in California on an assignment. I'm not sure I could've made that phone call."

Mac nodded and took a step toward the ambulance.

"I've got her. You go do what you need to do."

Flack promised to call as soon as he had useful information and walked into the crime scene. Mac moved to the detective's former position at Jo's side. He couldn't bring himself to ask how she was, so he simply sat his case down and then reached out and took her hand.

"They promised to have someone tell Russ in person. I just... I can't tell him this over the phone."

"It's good he'll have someone with him," Mac answered, and Jo nodded.

"And I called Brianna's mom. The girls were still up playing video games, but I just... I didn't want to drag her home in the middle of the night to tell her that her brother is... So, um, Sarah-Brianna's mom-she said she'd pull the cable so they didn't see anything online, and she's gonna bring Ellie back first thing in the morning."

She stood suddenly, catching him off guard, and Mac instinctively reached out to keep her close, her earlier physical collapse still too recent and real for him to not be concerned.

"This is a terrible thing for me to ask. I shouldn't even ask it, but..."

Jo pulled her hand away from his so both her palms could press against her face. Mac stood and moved closer to her, his fingers gently peeling hers away so that her eyes came back into view.

"You can ask me anything, Jo."

She took a deep breath, the exhale shaky and uneven.

"Will you be there when I tell her? I just... I'm not sure I can do it alone."

He knew that wasn't true. He knew she could. But the idea of her having to tore at his heart, and Mac used his grip on her hands to pull her into him, his arms looping around her.

"I'm here, Jo. I'll be here, whatever you need, okay?"

He felt her hands take hold of his shirt, twisting the material as she had earlier in the warehouse. Then he felt dampness spread through the fabric as she pressed her face into his chest and a sob tore free from her throat. The sound drew moisture from his own eyes, and Mac let his lids fall closed as he nuzzled the top of her head and prayed for the strength that he would need to see her through what was to come.


	2. Chapter 2

As the SUV moved through the city, the buildings and cars passed by Jo's eyes as nothing more than a watery blur. She wasn't crying anymore. Mac had let her cry herself out, at least for the moment, as he'd held her outside the warehouse where her son's life had ended. But the sting and the burn kept conjuring more moisture as her body tried to soothe the physical discomfort her grief had left behind.

It was quiet. Mac wasn't trying to force conversation or break up the silence. That was another of the things she liked about him that was sometimes frustrating as hell. He was so comfortable in silence that sometimes he didn't realize he needed to speak, to ask for help. But tonight, his ability to just be there in the car with her, the sound of the tires moving against the road and the traffic around them the only soundtrack she could handle at the moment, was gift she treasured.

Tyler was dead. The very idea of it still seemed unbelievable to the part of her that was a mother. The detective, though, the former FBI agent and the current CSI, she knew undeniable proof when she saw it. The kit Mac was returning to Sid undoubtedly contained a DNA sample to provide absolute confirmation, but Jo was the one parent who'd lost a child that night who didn't have to wait to be asked to provide a match sample, wondering the whole time what awful news awaited if the test came back positive. Her son was gone, and all that remained for her as a mother was to try to find a way to survive it.

The detective... she was done for now. Even if the NYPD would've allowed her to stay on the case, if there was the slightest desire in her to do so, Mac would never sign off on it. He'd use the legitimate reasons that would be obvious to anyone except a grieving parent... conflict of interest, appearance of impropriety, possible tainting of evidence. But Jo knew that for Mac the truth would be that he already knew she couldn't take anymore. The vision of Tyler's body would never leave her. The smell, the crackle of the ruined wallet... it was all part of her now. As her friend, she knew he'd never provide a chance for those wounds to deepen.

"You don't have to come up," Mac said as they pulled into the garage. "I can ask Sid to meet me in the lobby and just hand this off."

Jo shook her head and reached for the door handle.

"No. You'll feel better taking it up yourself. I'm fine."

She heard him sigh and turned toward him.

"You know what I meant. I... I can handle being upstairs. We have other families that need answers."

Mac nodded, and they both climbed out of the truck and headed for the elevator once he'd grabbed his kit from the backseat. Once they were inside the car and the doors had closed, Mac clicked the lobby button and then Jo felt his hand move to the small of her back. The gesture triggered a memory of the panic in his voice earlier as he'd carried her out of the warehouse.

"I'm sorry I scared you," she began, her gaze momentarily shifting to him before it returned to the closed elevator doors. "I just..."

He moved closer and she let her voice trail off.

"I know."

It was all he said, his voice low and soft, the breath from his mouth tickling her hair. From anyone else, the two words might have been confusing or seemed empty. But Jo understood. Mac_ did_ know.

The ding of the bell told them they'd arrived at the lobby, and the cops on graveyard guard duty waved them through to the secured elevators quickly. Soon they were on their floor, back where, just a few hours ago, she'd teased and cajoled him into having dinner with her, completely unaware of how swiftly the world was about to shift and throw her head first into the worst moment of her life.

"Why don't you wait in my office?" Mac suggested, his hand on her arm reminding her how worried he was about her. "Just pull the door, keep the lights down. And I'll be back as soon as I can."

She nodded, turning toward his office, but then Jo stopped and called his name.

"You need a sample, don't you? To run the DNA match. You're doing parent/child markers, right?"

The sound of her own voice made her shudder. Somehow the cop had asked that question, logic overruling emotion. But the mother... the words were a harsh reminder, and the mother felt her breath catch in her throat.

"We have one," Mac said, and her look must have registered nothing but confusion, because he stepped forward again, once more reaching for her with his free hand. "The catastrophic injury samples? We have yours from when you started at the lab. We can just use that."

"Right. Okay."

She remembered how nonchalant she'd been about the whole "we need to collect a DNA sample" issue after the hustle and commotion of her first day and the body in the lab had melded into day two and the red tape.

_"After 9/11, we started keeping them on file," Sid explained as he moved the swab closer to her face. "Saves us from having to ask a cop's family for a comparison specimen if, you know, something catastrophic happens."_

_"Hence the name," Jo said, smiling before she opened her mouth to let Sid collect his sample._

_"Hence the name, and now, Detective Danville, I will add you to our catastrophic injury DNA database."_

Sinking onto Mac's couch, the words felt so oddly cold now. "Catastrophic injury." What it really meant was "blown to pieces" or "burned beyond recognition" or "chopped into so many body parts," and the DNA sample was the most likely method of positive identification.

The scene flashed through her mind, and Jo leaned forward, hands pressed to her face, desperate to push it away.

She remembered kissing Tyler's fingers on the day he was born... her lips touching down on each perfect little tip. She'd explained to him in a soft voice how nobody in the world had the same fingerprints as him, they were his own special way to tell the story of who he was.

The sight of those hands burned and barely recognizable tormented her, and no matter how hard she tried to will the image away, it was a battle she couldn't win.

She needed to do something, she told herself. She couldn't just sit here and do nothing while the world around her felt as if it were plotting to fold in on her and crush her body under its weight.

The cell phone light hurt her eyes as she pulled it free and keyed up the contacts menu. Jo didn't want to give anyone this news on the phone, but this one call would be unavoidable.

Still, she sat there staring at the screen, her fingers refusing to push the call button.

* * *

><p>"The odds have to have been astronomical, no? I mean... for Jo to get this call, for her to be the first on scene?"<p>

Mac shrugged at Sid's question as the M.E. logged in the DNA samples, Tyler's set aside because after Sheldon's phone call alerting him to what had happened, the doctor had pulled Jo's DNA profile up on the computer already, determined to run the test as quickly as possible.

"Is she... I mean, I know she's not all right, but... how's she handling it?"

"She's... reeling," Mac answered, telling it as simply as he could.

Sid nodded and fell uncharacteristically silent.

"I'm gonna go get cleaned up and get her out of here before they get back."

Again Sid nodded, then he pulled his glasses up from where they rested against his chest and went to put them into place. When he paused mid-action, Mac snapped his kit closed and waited.

"She put shatter-resistant glass in them for me... after the sniper case. I mean, what are the chances of a bullet exploding in my face again? But she... did it anyway."

The two men shared a look that filled in the silence better than any words they might have offered, and then Mac picked up his kit.

"This one's gonna be hard, Sid. We're all gonna have to take care of each other."

"We will," Sid replied, though as Mac headed toward the door, he was unsure if it was a statement or a question.

Jo's ability to detect his never ending work days had put Mac on the defensive a bit, though he knew her concern was not only justified but coming from nothing but a genuine desire to see him take better care of himself. Still, he'd started keeping extra clothes in his locker, even beyond the regular backup set, to try to throw her off his trail. He had just brought in two new sets of running clothes and two suits, and as he eyed the dust and smudges on him from the crime scene, Mac was glad he'd made the effort. The last thing he needed was to bring anything from tonight home with them, and so even though he was hyper aware of keeping her in the lab too long, he took the time to change, choosing a pair of sweats, a t-shirt and a hoodie over another suit. He could slip into his work clothes once Jo got through the morning and he was back in the lab.

As Mac neared his office a few minutes later, he could hear her voice even though it was too muted by the glass walls and closed door for him to hear the words clearly. What he could make out was her struggle to keep her emotions in check, and for a moment, he wondered if Russ was on the other end of the line.

He pushed the door open quietly, and Jo glanced up. She waved him in, looking away quickly, but he could see she was desperately trying not to cry.

"I know, Mama. I know."

Her mother. Mac could only imagine how difficult it had been for her to decide to make that phone call. Her head rested in her hand, elbow propped on her knee, as she nodded unseen responses to whatever her mother was saying.

"Okay, you just call and let me know what time your flight will get in, okay? I know, Mama. I love you, too."

She hung up, the cell phone beeping softly in the darkened office, and then Jo slumped against the back of the couch. Mac moved to her side.

"You ready to get outta here?"

Her head tiled slightly to the right and she stared at him a moment before she nodded and moved to stand.

"What do we do now?" she asked, and the genuine confusion on her face over what came next sent an ache through his chest.

"We get you home, try to get some sleep. Get ready for Ellie to come home."

Jo blinked, nodded slightly, but she didn't move. So Mac stepped forward and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Come on."

She offered no resistance as he gently steered her toward the door and out into the hallway. It was sobering to see this woman who was always so determined and focused sapped of the strength Mac had seen on display constantly in the year since she'd appeared in his life by literally announcing herself from the upper deck walkway.

And it pulled at the scars inside of his own long-healing soul to see it because he remembered this... the feeling that everything had been sucked out of him and he was just a body somehow still moving with no life left to fuel the motions.

It had taken nearly a week for him to get to this place because the tragedy that had stolen Claire away from him had been so big. It had been days before they really understood how few bodies they'd recover, how massive the destruction truly was, and he'd been helping search for victims, helping care for injured officers, trying to somehow restore order to a lab overwhelmed by need.

Then finally they had ordered him to go home... the chief, the commissioner. _"Go home, Mac. Let yourself start to grieve."_

They hadn't realized that sending him into the quiet hadn't just been the start of his grieving... it had been the first moment when the reality of what had happened was able to crawl inside of him and tear away the last protective lies he'd cloaked himself in until the silence had stripped them away.

Claire was dead, murdered by monsters choosing ideology over humanity. And his world as he knew it was gone.

So many people had tried to be there for him as he battled through the anguish, but Mac Taylor wasn't good at letting people take care of him. It had probably prolonged his grieving, led to his seemingly incurable insomnia, and allowed him to become the workaholic Jo worried over. But it was how he was made, and his friends had somehow stayed by him even as he pushed them away.

And yet even though he knew he'd have fought it with every once of strength he had if someone had moved into his grief with him the way he was with Jo, Mac couldn't stop himself. He'd often told his team you couldn't follow your heart or let emotion rule you, and if asked, he would answer now that he was still following that commandment. His heart wasn't telling him to stay close to her. No, everything inside of Mac Taylor was demanding he not allow her to walk through this alone.

He had been to her apartment a few times-a couple of dinners, a quick stop to grab some files she'd forgotten. One thing he'd noted about it immediately was that, like Jo, it was charming and had a unique style, and it also had a way of drawing you in and making you feel right at home. Their first dinner here had ended somewhere around one in the morning when the orange and white wingchair he'd eyed warily turned out to be one of the most comfortable chairs he'd ever sat in, and one cup of after-dinner coffee had turned into two cups plus dessert and a lot of conversation.

The warmth of the apartment felt a little out of balance to Mac now as they stepped inside and he locked the door behind them. Jo dropped her purse and keys on a table by the entry, and Mac left his own keys beside hers.

It took her a minute to decide to walk any further inside, and once she did, she made it only to the back of that orange and white chair before she stopped and looked around the room.

"He came over for dinner Tuesday night. Made it even. Lasagna. Natalie taught him how to make it. I remember thinking, wow, if this girl can get him to cook, I may just have to fall in love with her, too. That's when I realized he was in love. She was Tyler's real first love. And I never even got to meet her. We were supposed to have dinner next week, all of us, so I could, but..."

She cleared her throat, and Mac closed the short distance between them, his hands falling on her shoulders.

"Boys have to be sure. Before they introduce a girl to their mother, they want to know that she's worth it. If Tyler was ready for Natalie to know his family, she must have been a very special young woman."

Jo's hand moved to her mouth, stifling a sob she didn't want him to hear. He didn't understand why she was trying to hide her tears from him, but he was already pushing her enough. He could let that go for now.

"Why don't you go change? I'll check in with Danny and Flack, and then we can try to get some sleep, okay?"

She nodded and headed toward her bedroom, and when Mac heard the door close, he pulled out his phone and dialed Flack's number first."

"How's it going?"

"We've contacted the families of the victims with likely I.D.s A few have to come in from out of town, but most of them are locals. Canvass gave us another lead on one of the vics with no I.D. at all. Danny's following up on that now."

"All right, I won't interrupt him then. You guys have anything you need me to know before I can get back, just call. If I can get Jo to try to sleep, I'm gonna turn my ringer off, but I'll have my cell nearby."

"We got it covered for now. Oh, and the chief left a message. Said he heard from the FBI that Russ should be back by about eight or nine in the morning."

"Okay, I'll let Jo know. Thanks, Don."

They ended the call, and Mac moved into the kitchen and poured two glasses of water before he headed back toward the bedroom. Thankfully they'd eaten a big dinner, so he wasn't worried about her needing to eat anything, but it had been hours since either of them had stopped to have anything to drink, and this was at least something he could do that didn't involve prodding into how she was feeling. He used his elbow to knock on the door and waited until Jo gave the okay before he went in. But she wasn't visible in the room as he entered, and Mac's eyes searched frantically until he heard water slosh to his left.

The bathroom door was partially closed, and he headed toward it.

"I brought you some water."

"Can you just put it by the bed?

He heard the water move again and realized she must have decided to take a bath. Mac moved to leave her glass on the nightstand, and then he went back to the door and sat down on the floor, careful to angle himself so he wasn't violating her privacy.

"Russ should be back by about nine."

She didn't answer, the water moving again, the sound making him imagine her hand moving back and forth, shifting the liquid around so that it lapped gently against the porcelain that surrounded her.

"What's the worst part?"

Her question settled on his shoulders, and Mac took a drink of water and sighed heavily before he attempted to answer.

"When everything gets quiet... when you lose track of it for a minute and your mind plays tricks on you because there isn't enough noise around to protect you from the silence."

He stopped and took another drink of water as a memory washed over him, drawing pain forth from those phantom scars that had no physical cause.

"I had been up a while... all night, really, and I had this blues CD playing. It was a greatest hits collection, so it just played and played, you know, the changer just switching off the different discs. I went into the kitchen to make some coffee, and suddenly... the music stopped. And it was just... it was so still and quiet. And for a second I thought I heard Claire laughing."

Even though he had moved on and finally accepted the loss and let himself care about other women, telling the story all these years later sent a ghost of the devastation Mac had felt that morning through his gut. The impact of that small beat of time had been unimaginable once reason reminded him all too quickly that the sound he loved so much wasn't really his wife's laughter, but his mind filling the silence.

The water in the bathtub protested as Jo climbed out, and Mac stood and walked over to the bed, sitting on the end of it, leaving her to make her way out when she was ready. When she emerged wrapped in a thick robe, her eyes were redder than they'd been earlier, and he wondered if she'd been crying again.

"I have to call a funeral home. I don't... I have no idea who to even call for that."

"The department has a list. I'll have someone bring it over tomorrow, okay?"

Jo nodded and sighed, but then she took a deep breath and as she let it out, Mac saw another wave start to wash over her with the same force it had earlier at the crime scene.

"When I had to tell my mother... I don't know how many more times I can do that, Mac. Saying it... it feels like someone's tearing my heart out when I say it."

His first instinct was to pull her into his arms, but along with her grief, it was obvious that Jo's exhaustion was only adding to how broken she felt. So Mac stood and moved to the side of the bed, pulling the covers back.

"Jo, come on and lie down, okay? Just... if you can't sleep, you can't, but come and lie down."

She sniffled and then made her way to him. He waited as she settled herself on her side in the bed and then eased the sheet and quilt up over her before he knelt down so they were face to face.

"Your mom is gonna want to take care of you, the same way you need to take care of Ellie. She can make the phone calls. She'll _want_ to make them. And if she can't, then we'll all help you do that, okay? We'll get everything taken care of, one thing at a time. Right now, just focus on trying to rest, getting yourself ready to talk to Ellie. That's all that matters for now."

She nodded, but her eyes grew sadder even in the small beat before she spoke again.

"I was supposed to get to spend the rest of my life watching him grow up... get married... playing with my grandbabies. I wasn't supposed to have to..."

He couldn't take it anymore. Mac stood and moved to the other side of the bed, and he laid down on top of the blankets, wrapping his arms around her, her back to his chest. As she felt him take hold, every attempt Jo had been making to fight her pain and be strong gave way, his comfort opening the doors once again.

"You weren't supposed to have to say good-bye to him, Jo. I know that has to be true because I don't believe you were meant to lose him. And I don't know why this happened, but I promise you... I swear... you're gonna get through it."

That made her cry harder, and Mac pulled her even tighter against him.

"Don't let go."

He could barely hear her, her voice was so strained, but the words still reached him.

"I won't. I'm not going anywhere."

As he said the words, Mac knew they were more than a promise. They were a vow.


	3. Chapter 3

The soft vibration against his right hip pulled Mac from sleep, and as he reached down to pull his cell phone free from his pocket, he also realized that the position he'd held in his last conscious memory... on his side behind Jo, his arms desperately trying to steady her as she finally lost her battle with the tidal wave of grief she'd been fighting for hours... had changed in his sleep. Now he was on his back and he was half covered by the blankets Jo had tossed off as she'd turned toward him and taken up her current position, cheek against his chest, left hand clinging to his hooded sweatshirt as if she were afraid he might disappear were she to let go. But Jo had nothing to worry about. His left arm still held her close, keeping him true to his word.

He hadn't let go.

Lifting his head carefully, Mac saw that she was mercifully asleep, her breaths coming even, her face free of the terrible pain that he knew would return as soon as wakefulness stole away what scrap of peace she'd found in the night. He sighed, grateful that she was getting at least a small bit of rest. He didn't doubt Jo would need all the reserves she could muster to face telling Ellie what had happened to her brother.

Mac remembered having to tell Reed that Claire was gone. His wife's long-lost son had been a stranger and yet having to deliver that news had left Mac feeling as if his stomach would drop out of his body. He couldn't imagine relaying that kind of tragic loss to your own child, having to face the fact that there was no way to protect them from the devastation of it.

And Russ... Mac felt certain the brunt of Russ' grief would fall on Jo's shoulders, and he understood it... they had created Tyler together; it made sense they would be united in some way during the mourning of him as well... but he couldn't help but wonder how this woman lying against him was supposed to mount the effort it would take to be everything to everyone around her when it was her child who was dead.

He had never spoken to Jo's mother, but Mac hoped that the steeled spine and stamina of the woman she'd raised spoke to who Mrs. Danville was. Because as much as he intended to be there whenever Jo needed him, he knew there might be things he couldn't fully understand the way another parent could. And selfishly, Mac wanted to believe there was someone else who would look after her as well as he would try to in the hours he'd have to be away; the certainty that he would have to leave eventually as true for Mac as the awfulness of this day was unavoidable to everyone who was working this case or whose loved one had been a victim of the crime.

Mac remembered telling Don that he was turning his ringer off if he could get Jo to sleep, and so he wasn't surprised his team had sent him texts rather than trying to call. The first message had come through nearly two hours ago from Sid telling him that, while they hadn't expected any different, the DNA match for Tyler had confirmed his I.D. The second was an update from Flack... Natalie's parents were due at the station by noon if he wanted to be there for the notification. Mac knew he needed to try if for no other reason than so Jo could know he was there when the parents of the girl Tyler had loved found out that she was gone.

He texted back, typing slowly with one hand, sending thanks to Sid and a quick "I'll be there" to Don. Then he scrolled to the third message. It was from Ted Carver, their former boss, who said simply, "I owe you both. Let me know if I can do anything."

Jo's interview with Ted's nephew, Jay, during the investigation into the death of Ronnie Parker had been one of the moments where, if asked, Mac would say he had taken note not just of her skill in the box but her deep compassion. Taking in the physical damage that Jay had suffered at his mother's hands, hearing the story of how her abuse had led Jay to kill her and hide her body... it was the kind of story cops dreaded. Because in the end, no matter how justified you might have felt the action to be in some way, there had still been a life taken and even if no charges were ever filed, the scars born by the people who survived were always far deeper and more painful than the ones you could see.

Jo had listened to Jay in a way that let him open up, let him admit his sin, his true feelings behind it, and yet left intact the man he had become, the man his uncle had helped him to be. And Mac suspected, though no one would confirm it, that just as he'd gone to bat for the former chief of Manhattan detectives, helping Ted Carver avoid prosecution, Jo had done a lot to help the D.A. decide there was no point in prosecuting Jay and taking him away from the family he'd sacrificed so much to protect. The young man had taken a plea deal with no jail time, and though the crime was noted on his record, it was hard to believe anyone who knew the facts would ever hold it against him.

It didn't surprise Mac that Ted had reached out to them now, though he wasn't expecting the news to have traveled outside the department yet. That prompted him to fire off another text to Danny, asking if any information had been released.

Then Jo's grip on his sweatshirt tightened and her whole body tensed against him before she startled awake, her eyes going wide for a moment before her lids closed again, her right hand moving to cover her face as she rested her head down on his chest.

"I'm right here," he said, reassuring her with a low voice. She nodded, but said nothing, and when he saw that her fingers were still clutching at the fabric underneath them, Mac let his phone drop on the bed and he lowered his palm to cover her hand. The muscles relaxed under his touch and he tightened the hold of his left arm where it had gone slack around her body.

"Bad dream?"

She said nothing for just long enough to make him wonder if she'd heard him, but then Jo tipped her face up, her chin resting on her right hand as her eyes found his.

"I don't know. I... I don't know what it was."

When her eyes dropped and no more words came, Mac considered pressing, but either she didn't want to talk about it or she really didn't remember because her brain was trying to protect her from whatever it was that had jolted her awake. So he decided his best course of action was to keep his embrace strong and the silence intact until she broke it.

"What is this?" she asked, her index finger circling an area on his chest just above his heart at a spot where his hoodie splayed open, the cotton of his t-shirt not nearly thick enough to hide the uneven ridges beneath. Mac cleared his throat, the memories that always came back at any mention of the scar teasing at the back of his mind.

"Beirut barracks. That one's a shrapnel burn."

Her fingers continued to play over the uneven skin as she took in that information. There was another beat of silence, and then her voice reached out to him again, a slight tremor making his hand grip hers, stilling it against his chest once more.

"When Sid finishes the autopsy, will you... will you lock me out of the file? Because I don't think I can know if Tyler was still alive when the fire... I don't think I can know that."

He inhaled a big breath of air to steady himself before he answered. It was something he had the power to do as the head of the lab, but without her asking, he'd have never considered it, especially given her position as his second in command. If it was what she wanted, he'd never say no, but he needed something in return; a small reassurance that he wasn't setting her up for disaster later on.

"I will if you promise me that if you ever change your mind, you'll come to me and let me tell you. Don't go looking for it alone."

Jo nodded her agreement and then she eased herself away from him, breaking their contact as she scanned the room.

"It's almost 8. I should go get ready."

"Yeah," he agreed, sitting up, his arm registering an official complaint about its positioning through the night. "I'll make some coffee, something for breakfast."

"Mac, I don't think I can eat anything."

"But you'll try... for me."

He added a slight smile to his plea, hoping his expression and the irony of him worrying over anyone else missing a meal given his awful habits would be enough to get her to agree. There was a hint of the corners of her mouth turning upward as her eyes found his.

"No promises, but I'll try."

Jo pushed herself up off the bed and headed into the bathroom, and Mac grabbed his cell phone and made his way out to the hall, closing the door behind him.

A survey of the kitchen revealed an ample supply of coffee, and he had a pot brewing in minutes. Eggs and some wheat bread gave him the makings of a basic breakfast, and he was just about to start warming up a skillet he'd found in the lower cabinet when his cell began to buzz on the counter. Seeing Danny's name on the caller I.D. screen, Mac answered and drew the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Danny."

"Mac, I got your text. No victim info is out yet. Carver called here earlier. The commissioner called him as a courtesy, you know, since he was the one who brought Jo onboard. Figured he'd want to know, I guess."

There was no holding back the sigh of relief Mac felt at that news. While he knew the reveal was inevitable, the longer the press went ignorant of the fact that a cop had lost a child in the fire, the better for them all. But he had an idea now of what he could ask Carver to help with.

"Where are we?" Mac asked, knowing he was close to that time when he'd have to get back to the case.

"We've got a possible lead. Natalie's roommate said she overheard a couple of people talking about making a buy at the party. She didn't know specifically what they were looking for, but Flack floated it past a few of the other survivors, and one of them... business manger who was there with his frat brother... he said there's a guy named Tuffi who's been selling to the frats and sorority row types since the semester started. He's not on narco's radar yet, but we're running it down."

"Okay. Call A.D. Becker over at the FBI. They may have something on this Tuffi in their protected files, but they're likely to be in a sharing mood on this one."

Neither of them needed to say why.

"Also, uh, Sheldon's putting together a first-pass report on the forensics as soon as Lindsay runs another set of tests. Should I have him e-mail you?"

"No, I'll be in before I head to the precinct," Mac said, knowing that if he had to, he'd have to call one of their team to come over and stay with Jo because there was no chance he was leaving her and Ellie here on their own. "And, Danny, tell Sid to code the autopsy report on Tyler eyes only to me. I'll disseminate it once I get in."

"You got it, Mac. Anything else we can do from here?"

"The department packet for families of fallen officers... it has that list of funeral homes in it. Can you have a uniform run it over to Jo's when you have time?"

"Jeez," Danny said, and Mac could sense the realization in the younger man's voice as he thought of what that meant, what lay ahead for Jo and her family. "Yeah, I'll take care of it."

A soft knock at the door drew Mac's attention away from the call, and he looked at his still uncooked breakfast ingredients and knew that he might have just lost his chance to get any food into Jo if Ellie was already home.

"Danny, I gotta go. I'll check in as soon as I can."

Danny threw out a quick good-bye, and then Mac ended the call and tucked his cell back into his pocket as he moved to the door. He took a moment before he grabbed the handle, praying Ellie wouldn't see anything on his face, and then he opened the portal expecting to see the teen on the other side.

Instead he was met with a face he could easily imagine as Jo's 25 years from now, framed by short gray hair. The woman was wearing a simple black outfit... tailored pants and a black sweater, and a small suitcase stood at her side, extended handle curled in her hand.

"Detective Taylor?"

He was thrown that she knew his name, and it took Mac a moment to step back and open the door wider.

"Mrs. Danville?"

The woman nodded and stepped inside, leaving the suitcase near the entry table where he and Jo had left their keys the night before.

"Paulette, please. I still think of Mrs. Danville as my mother-in-law."

Mac pushed the door closed and motioned toward the pathway to the kitchen.

"I was just making some coffee, starting breakfast. Jo's, uh, in her room getting herself together."

Paulette nodded and followed after him. When Mac went to reach for the eggs he'd left on the counter, she waved him off and took up the task herself.

"And how's my Josie doing?"

The name caught him off guard, and Paulette chuckled and shook her head.

"Dear Lord, please don't tell her I called her that."

"You knew I'd be here?" he asked, changing the subject as he opened two upper cabinets in search of the coffee mugs. Finding them, he pulled three down and filled one, offering it to Paulette. She took it gratefully and nodded.

"Jo," she said, emphasizing that she'd corrected her name selection, "told me on the phone when she called last night that you were seeing her home."

"She said she was waiting for you to call or e-mail with your flight information. I could've had someone pick you up."

The older woman handily broke half a dozen eggs into the bowl Mac had pulled out earlier and whipped them into a frothy mixture, adding salt and pepper before she put the skillet on the stove and turned on the burner to heat it.

"I have a friend whose son works for one of the airlines," Paulette reported, picking up the conversation again. "I called her, and she told me to pack a bag and head for the airport. By the time I got there, he had me booked on the next flight out. I figured it would be just as easy for me to just take a cab in as to make Jo worry about how to get me here."

"She slept a little," Mac stated, answering the woman's earlier inquiry. "But it's good that you're here. What she saw... no mother should have to see that."

Paulette turned and eyed him, studying him, and Mac sipped at his coffee before offering what other information he could.

"Russ is on a plane. Should be back anytime now. And Ellie is due home soon."

"Oh, I do not envy my girl that conversation."

She turned her attention to the eggs, and Mac washed his hands and grabbed the bread he'd pulled out of the fridge earlier and put several slices in the toaster oven before he pushed the start button down.

"Mac, did you see my phone out there?" Jo called, and he moved to the hallway and looked down to see her bedroom door open.

"It's on the table by your keys. And your mom is here."

She looked out at him, surprised. Mac watched as she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before heading out. He took a few steps toward her, meeting her before she was within earshot or sight of her mother.

"Should I give you a minute?" he asked, his voice low. He was met with her whispered reply as her hand passed over his forearm, squeezing it.

"Not yet."

He nodded and allowed her to pass in front of him.

"Mama."

Paulette had found two plates and was dishing up eggs onto them when she heard Jo's voice. She immediately set the skillet back on the extinguished burner and reached for her daughter. Mac brushed past them, letting them have a moment of greeting while he poured Jo some coffee, easily finding the sugar on the counter so he could add her two cubes and mix it in before handing it to her.

"Baby girl, I managed to get on a plane and just decided to take it and get up here."

Jo hugged her mother tightly, and Mac didn't get the impression she was upset at Paulette's arrival so much as she'd probably had a plan in mind for how to navigate the morning, and now it had been thrown off course. As she stepped back from the embrace, Jo reached for the coffee Mac was holding out to her. She moved to the breakfast nook countertop and leaned against it, taking a sip of the steaming brew.

The toaster oven chose that moment to ding, and Mac grabbed the toast out, adding it to the plates Paulette had set up already. He placed a fork on one and set it down beside Jo.

"I know, no promises. Just try."

She sighed and set down her coffee before pulling the plate closer. She stabbed at the eggs, cutting a piece and lifting it to her lips. Mac saw body recoil at the idea of food, but then she glanced at him and took the bite, forcing it down.

"Should we call and find out where Ellie is?" Paulette asked. Jo shook her head and took a bite of the toast before retrieving her coffee and taking a deep sip.

"Sarah will get her back soon, Mama. I don't want to call and check up on her. Ellie will already be wondering why she has to come home so early."

"Well, I still don't understand why you didn't pick her up last night. What if she sees it in the papers?"

Jo turned back to the plate without answering, cutting another piece of egg free, stabbing it with her fork before she made a second labored attempt at eating. Mac cleared his throat after finishing a bite of his own breakfast.

"There's no victim information in the media yet, so she won't see anything before she gets home."

As he mentioned the media, Jo's eyes shot his direction. He knew the question without it being asked.

"I talked to Danny. Still giving the 'pending family notifications' standby."

"Have they reached Natalie's parents yet?"

He nodded. "This afternoon. I'll be there with Flack for it."

She watched him another beat before she picked up her coffee once more, her fingers playing against the top of the cup.

"Natalie?"

Paulette's query was left unanswered as keys twisted in the front door lock, clattering slightly.

"Mama, I need you to go to my room and wait."

Mac saw the older woman ready to argue, but Jo was having none of it. She pushed her mother toward the hallway gently, but purposefully.

"If she sees you, she'll know right away that something is wrong. Go."

It was obvious Paulette was not happy, but she went, closing the door behind her a beat before Ellie burst into the breakfast nook area with a plastic food container held up, pride beaming.

"We made you cookies!" she announced, smiling at her mother, and Jo's mouth curved naturally to mirror the expression, her arms opening as Ellie came forward to hug her.

"Chocolate chip?"

"With extra chips," Ellie announced. "Mrs. Hunter helped us."

Mac looked up to see a woman he assumed must be Sarah Hunter standing across from them, and he walked over and offered his hand as mother and daughter lapsed into a conversation about cookies and baking.

"Mac Taylor."

"Sarah Hunter. Um, I left Briana at home with her dad, but I'm headed home to tell her now," she said, her voice kept low out of concern for Ellie. "Tell Jo I'll call later. If it'll help, I'm sure Briana will want to come and be with El."

"I'll let her know," he said.

"Ellie, talk to you soon," Sarah said, her voice at full volume now, and the girl turned and waved.

"Thanks, Mrs. Hunter."

Mac walked Sarah to the door, closing and locking it behind her. When he got back to the kitchen, Ellie was sitting on a stool eating from Jo's barely touched plate, and he could see that Jo was trying to build up her nerve to face what was coming.

"Detective Taylor, what are you doing here?" Ellie asked, giving her mom another brief reprieve, and Mac retrieved his coffee and leaned on the counter.

"Your mom and I were up kinda late, so I just stayed over."

"On a case?"

Mac nodded, and Jo eased herself down onto the stool opposite Ellie, her right hand falling on her daughter's leg.

"Sweetheart, I actually need to talk to you about that."

Most of the kids Mac had known who grew up in law enforcement families understood that there was always a danger lurking around their families, but most people tried to avoid dwelling on it, making sure they were honest enough with their kids that they had some idea what could happen but leaving out details that might spur nightmares or too much anxiety. Still, the mention of something that had to be talked about was a trigger for concern.

"Did something happen? Are you okay?" Ellie asked, immediately looking over both her mother and Mac, her doubts forming that his brief explanation was telling her the whole story.

"I'm fine, honey," Jo said, "and Mac is fine. But... this case. It was a bad one, El. There was a... a party in a warehouse... a bunch of college kids were there. And someone..."

Her voice faded and Mac moved behind her, his hand pressing against her back between her shoulder blades.

"Someone started a fire at the warehouse," he finished, and Ellie looked from him to her mother, eyes wide with concern.

"Did everyone get out?"

"No," Jo answered. "No, honey, everyone didn't get out."

"Oh, my God. That's awful. So you guys must have been at work really late, huh?"

Ellie leaned her elbow against the counter and rested her head in her hand. She still seemed confused about where the conversation was headed, but her attention was locked on her mother.

"Honey, in a case like this, it can take some time for us to identify everyone, and so it'll be a little while before it gets out in the news... the names of the people who were hurt or killed. But some of the... some of the victims have already been identified."

Jo slid off the stool and moved a little closer to her daughter, her hands coming to rest on both of the girl's arms.

"Ellie, I wish so much I didn't have to tell you this, but... one of the people at the party... one of the students who was killed... it was Tyler."

It took time for it to sink in, for the words to register and their meaning to take hold, and when they did, Mac saw it clearly. Ellie shook her head and her face morphed into a mix of sadness and confusion even as she tried to push Jo away.

"No. No! That's not... I'm calling him. I'm calling him right now."

Jo pulled Ellie against her, not letting the girl make a move away.

"Baby, you know I'd never tell you this if it wasn't true. You know that."

"No," Ellie cried, and now it was a broken sound, tears beginning to stream as her heart acknowledged the truth of her mother's words. "No, he can't be..."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so, so sorry."

Mac heard the whispered apology and then watched as Ellie went weak against her mother for a beat before she pushed back, breaking the embrace as Jo relinquished her hold. Ellie turned and ran to her room, the door slamming in her wake. As the sound echoed through the apartment, he stepped forward, his hands falling on Jo's shoulders. She leaned back against him, letting him take the brunt of her weight as the energy drained from her body.

"How do I ever make this right for her?" she asked.

And because he didn't know the answer, Mac leaned forward his arms wrapping around her, and he told her the truth.

"I don't know. I just know that you will."


	4. Chapter 4

It seemed almost impossible that it had been less than six hours since he'd left the lab to take Jo home, but a glance at his watch as he climbed off the elevator told Mac it had really been that brief a time. And yet the truth was, if he'd had his way, it would've been hours still before he walked back into this hallway.

Even with Jo's mother there, with Ellie so upset and Jo so worried, leaving had been harder than he'd expected. Had it been any other case that was demanding his attention, Mac would've considered something he'd only done during periods where he was recovering from injuries... turning it over to someone else. Danny was a sergeant now, ready to take on more responsibility, maybe even dealing with the chief and commissioner's office, and Sheldon was more than capable of spearheading the forensics overviews and shepherding everything to the D.A.

But it wasn't any other case, and though for the first time in years, Mac felt the true pull of life versus his job, he knew that he had to find a balance here for his own good as well as Jo's. The idea that some piece of evidence would go untested or unlogged, that it might be the reason no one ever paid for this... it was unthinkable. And yet as determined as he was, as the whole team was, Mac also knew there was a chance they might not find that answer. He didn't know what happened to any of them if that was how this story ended.

The mood in the lab was beyond subdued. The normally bustling hallways were still busy, but the staffers were clearly weighed down by the news of what had left Jo's desk unoccupied. As he neared his office, the sight of Lindsay swiping at her cheeks while trying to process a set of specimens, Danny close by, trying to offer comfort, told him his observation to Sid in the wee hours had been true. They were all going to have to take care of each other.

"Mac."

Hawkes caught him halfway between the elevator and his office door, and Mac turned to find the younger man holding a department-issue tablet in his hand.

"Sheldon, how's it going?"

"We found the ignition sites in the warehouse. No incendiary devices. Our arsonist soaked four small rugs in accelerant, each one positioned to cut off the best escape routes. I couldn't find any trace of what they used to ignite each rug, but it could have been as simple as lighting a cigarette and dropping it down onto the targets."

"That's well-planned. This wasn't a last-minute revenge move. Someone in that warehouse was definitely a target."

Sheldon nodded.

"Exactly. Now we're still trying to get a location on this Tuffi, but Danny got ahold of the FBI like you asked. They have a file open on our man. It's downloaded on here for you along with the trace reports from the crime scene."

Mac accepted the tablet from Hawkes and was about to thank him when he saw a flash of concern cross the doctor's face.

"Something wrong?"

Sheldon took a few steps back and motioned for Mac to join him. Moving slightly across the hall allowed them a better view of the inside of Mac's office. That was when he realized it wasn't empty. Russ Josephson was sitting on the couch.

"He showed up about an hour ago. He didn't seem to want to talk to anyone, but I didn't think I should just chase him off. Figured the best idea was to have him wait for you."

Mac nodded and gave a reassuring pat to Hawkes' arm.

"It was a good call."

Relieved, Sheldon took his leave, heading back in to check with Danny and Lindsay. Mac meanwhile finished the short journey to his office door. Russ looked up as he entered, the portal's whooshing sound drawing his attention that way, and Mac walked around the coffee table and sat down on the opposite end of the couch.

"Russ, I'm... I'm so sorry."

The other man nodded and exhaled deeply.

"I came straight here from the airport. I... I thought I wanted to see him, but..."

Mac leaned forward and set the tablet on the table before he reached over and dropped his hand onto Russ' arm.

"Don't do that to yourself. We have a positive I.D., so there's no need, and you'll never get that image out of your mind."

Which Mac knew was already going to haunt one of Tyler's parents. That was tragedy enough without adding his father to the mix.

"I can't let her carry that alone. I mean... how is that just? She has to spend the rest of her life seeing him lying there, and what, I get off scot-free?"

"Russ... you lost your son. There's no walking away clean from that. And Jo... she isn't carrying it all alone."

The FBI agent looked up at him, confusion on his face for a beat before his eyes left Mac and he glanced over his shoulder into the hall before his gaze fell to the floor.

"You were all there?"

"I'd give anything if one of us had beaten her to the scene, but by the time it was over, yeah, our whole team was there."

Russ nodded and took another deep breath before glancing back Mac's direction.

"She's stronger than me. Always has been. That was our problem, really. I tried to make her weak so she'd need me, but she never did, not really, and now... I'm not sure I have anything to give."

Was there a right thing to say in response to that? Mac didn't know. He knew Russ' words were only adding to his worry that Jo was going to be run too hard and too thin trying to take care of everyone else mourning Tyler, and it strengthened his resolve to find as many ways as he could to fill in the gaps and make sure she wasn't the one being neglected. Still he felt like he had to say something to try and help the grieving father beside him find some kind of direction.

"Jo's mom flew in this morning. And we told Ellie what happened. Right now, I think the most important thing is that... all the people who loved Tyler give themselves time to grieve. Maybe you can just help each other do that."

For a moment, Russ just sat there, staring past Mac, maybe wondering what was happening in the rooms beyond the office walls, what pieces were being put together to find his son's murderer. Then he stood and pulled his hands through his hair.

"I should let you get back to work."

"Do you, uh... do you have somebody to be with you, Russ?"

"Uh, yeah," the man said, nodding quickly. "My brother's on his way. And I, uh, I'm gonna go by, check on the girls."

"If there's anything I can do..." Mac left the offer unfinished, knowing he didn't need to fill in the rest of the words. Russ sighed and shook his head.

"Just find the son of a bitch. Find him so I don't kill him and spend the rest of my life in prison."

Before Mac could respond, Russ was gone, the door drifting shut behind him, leaving the crime lab boss to hope he'd just heard empty, angry words and not a true threat.

* * *

><p>Once when Ellie had been four, her favorite stuffed animal-a giraffe named she'd named Epalu-had gotten lost on vacation in Florida. Tyler had given it to her for her third birthday, and if Jo closed her eyes, she could still hear the desperate wails the little girl had let loose once even a favor called in at the local FBI office had proven unsuccessful in recovering the treasured toy.<p>

Because he couldn't stand to see her so upset, Tyler had broken open his piggy bank and gone to the little shop on the corner where they'd always stop on evening walks to gaze in the windows at the magical displays of books and stuffed animals and new mechanical cars, planes, and trains.

He'd been two dollars short for the only thing he thought would make Ellie stop crying, but the shop owner, who knew the family well, had agreed to let Tyler sign an I.O.U. note for the difference.

From the moment he'd placed the soft gray hippopotamus in his sister's hands, Ellie had loved it best of any toy she owned. And now Jo watched as her daughter, who was 12 going on 30 most days, lie in her bed, Salsadear Hippo crushed against her chest. Her thin body swam in one of Tyler's oldest Crimson Tide sweatshirts... the arms so worn that you could put your hands through an opening at the wrist elastics. But it had been his favorite, and he pleaded with Jo each and every time she did laundry not to throw it away.

She knew now that it, too, had become a treasure... a memory they could hold in their hands along with the pictures it brought to mind of popcorn fights and soda-drinking contests during Saturday football games.

"Brianna wants to come over and sit with you," Jo said finally, her hand moving up and down Ellie's back. "Would you like that?"

Ellie nodded yes and sniffled. Then she turned over, the move forcing Jo's hand away. But instead of causing a distance between them, the girl reached out and took hold of her mother's hand.

"Is it okay that I... I wanted to wear it?"

Jo eyed the sweatshirt and smiled, pulling Ellie's hand up to her face so she could kiss it.

"I think Tyler would love that it makes you feel better. And you can go into his room anytime you want, okay, and get anything you need. Just, you know, knock first while Grandma's here."

Ellie tried to smile, but the effort had no heart in it, and so Jo leaned forward and kissed the girl's forehead.

"Speaking of, I should go talk to her. I'll call Mrs. Hunter and tell her to bring Brianna over, okay? You need anything else?"

Mother and daughter's eyes met, and Jo sighed. Of course the only thing either of them really needed was lost to them. Everything else was just what they were using to make it through this day.

"Okay, I'll check on you in a little bit."

Ellie turned back on her side, Salsadear still clutched in her arms. Jo stood reluctantly, really wanting nothing more than to curl up with her girl and try to find a way to keep the sadness from getting too tight a hold on her. But she made herself walk out of the room, and as she pulled the doors closed behind her, she could feel her mother's eyes boring into her from across the hallway.

Seeing the door of Tyler's room standing open made her stomach turn over, and Jo bolted, moving as quickly to the living room as her legs would carry her.

"You chose a stranger over me, Jo. I think I get to be upset about that."

Jo sank down into her favorite chair and put her hands to her face. She felt dizzy, her stomach still roiling, and the last thing she wanted was to have this conversation.

"Mama, really? Mac is not a stranger. And do we really have to have this fight? I explained why I wanted you to wait in my room."

"And I waited like you asked. I'm just saying, you could've told Ellie I was here and had me with you when you broke the news. That's what I'm here for."

A deep sigh escaped her lips despite her best efforts, and Jo shook her head and looked over at her mother, who was standing against the far wall in the room sipping from a cup of coffee.

"I'm glad you're here, Mama. I really am. But how I handle my daughter is up to me."

"And having Mac Taylor with you was about Ellie?"

Exasperated, Jo stood and walked back to the kitchen, reaching for her empty cup and the freshly brewed second pot of coffee. She made herself count to ten silently before she even considered speaking another word. After adding her cubed sugar to her cup, she turned to find her mother standing in the entryway.

"Do you have any idea how many crime scenes I've been to in my career, Mama? Hell, just since I came to New York, it's already in the hundreds for this city alone. And whenever there are young victims, I always think, those poor parents. How in the world are they gonna survive this? And then last night... that was _my_ baby lying there. That's my son that's never coming home. And I was there, and I couldn't breathe, and my head was screaming at me that my boy was gone, and my heart was praying it wasn't true, and if Mac hadn't..."

She didn't know she was crying until she felt a teardrop fall against her hand. Jo blinked and swiped at her cheeks, then she sat her cup down and pressed her palms against the countertop.

"I'm not trying to upset you."

Her mother's voice was softer now, and she felt the hands that had soothed her in childhood take gentle hold of her arm.

"I'm used to being your mama. I'm used to seeing your life and speaking my mind about it. I know how to do that."

Jo sniffled and nodded, casting a quick glance her mother's way before the effort proved too much and she let her eyes drop once again.

"I have a list started of people to call and the things we need to do. I know what I'm supposed to say when your friends come to pay their condolences and I wrote a list of foods to make that you can freeze and heat up as you need them so you don't have to cook. But, baby, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to help you right now, and I guess... I guess it's just easier to be the mama I am every other day than worry about making a mistake being the one you need today."

And despite her flash of anger a moment earlier, Jo understood that. She'd had those same days with Tyler as her little boy turned into a grown man who didn't want to share parts of his life with her. So she turned and opened her arms to her mother, and Paulette grabbed hold of her and held on tight.

"I feel like I'm in pieces, Mama, and the parts are just... they're hanging on by a thread. And I know it's not fair... I know it's more than I should take from him, but I really think Mac is the only thing holding me together."

Her mother's hands moved in firm strokes up and down her back the same way her own had done for Ellie, and Jo allowed herself to sink into the embrace.

"If that's the case, baby, then you let him. You hear me? You let him."

"But what if it is too much?"

Jo sniffled and pushed back, her back pressing into the counter. She wasn't even sure she could stay upright now without something or someone to lean against.

"Mac's wife died in the towers. I told you that, didn't I?

Paulette nodded.

"It took him so long to start to heal. Sheldon and Don and Danny... they told me how much worse he used to be back then with the not sleeping or eating, never going home. And his time in the military and on the job... there's been so much death, Mama, so much loss. He's had to carry so much. Is it fair of me to ask him to stand here and watch what's happening to this family?"

Her mother sighed and stepped closer, her hands taking hold of Jo's.

"I think Detective Taylor is the only one who can answer that, honey. But I think that you... even when your mama doesn't like being rushed down a hallway 'cause she thinks you need her... you have the best instincts of any human being I've ever known this side of your daddy. If your gut is telling you Mac Taylor is what you need... I'd listen."

* * *

><p>Gavin and Sylvie Bremmer were in their late 40s, both doctors, both the last people on earth you'd ever expect to see sitting in a police station waiting to hear that their oldest child was dead.<p>

Mac imagined that's exactly what anyone who looked at Russ and Jo would think as well, and yet both families had suffered the same terrible loss.

The Bremmers were the last family with a confirmed I.D. they had to notify. Three victims were still waiting for further tests to come back, but their families had all been located and knew they were likely waiting for bad news.

As soon as they walked out of this room, the chief would get the go-ahead to release the victims' names. The city would know then that the NYPD and the FBI had suffered a very personal loss in the fire the media had already decided to dub "the college inferno." And once that happened, there would be no way to completely shield Jo and Russ from all the cameras and questions, though Ted Carver had agreed to call in whatever favors he was still owned in the press to at least keep the media crush at bay for another day or two.

"You sure you want to do this?"

Don sounded like he'd been awake for days. Mac remembered their conversation about how much time their cases took off their "expiration dates," and if the detective's theory held any weight, this one was going to take far more than two years away from all of them.

"I am. Let's go."

The Bremmers looked up at them as the door opened, and Mac stepped in first, heading over to shake their hands.

"I'm Detective Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. Bremmer. I believe you spoke with Detective Flack on the phone earlier," he said, motioning toward Don, who also offered his hand to both of them.

"You said... you said you needed to ask us a few questions about our daughter?" Mr. Bremmer looked at them with some small remnant of hope in his eyes, almost wishing that he was about to hear his girl had made a mistake and was in jail or was in some kind of trouble. But Mac sensed that he knew what was coming, and there was no point in prolonging the inevitable.

"Mr. and Mrs. Bremmer... I'm so sorry to have to tell you this..."

Mother and father grabbed at each other's hands, and Mac could already feel their pain radiating across the room toward him.

"Natalie was at a party last night, and apparently someone started a fire. I'm sorry, but Natalie was killed."

Mr. Bremmer crushed his wife against him as a sob tore from her, and it was obvious the man was tapping into some deep well of strength to try to keep himself together for her sake.

"Do you know who did this?" he asked, and Don shook his head.

"We're working on some leads. We're doing everything we can to close this as quickly as possible."

The man nodded, his arms still crushing against his wife. Then Mrs. Bremmer pushed back suddenly, her eyes shifting from her husband to Mac and Don.

"Tyler? Was she with Tyler?"

"Her boyfriend," Mr. Bremmer offered. "We only met him last week, but he seemed like a good kid. He..."

The grieving father's voice trailed off, and then his eyes widened.

"Oh, my God. Isn't his mother... she works here, doesn't she?"

Mac nodded and leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table.

"She does. Jo Danville. She works with me at the crime lab. She wanted very much to be here, but... Tyler was also killed in the fire, and it's important for when we catch the killer and go to trial that she not be a part of anything official in the case."

Mrs. Bremmer closed her eyes and leaned against her husband.

"She was so excited to meet her. Natalie, I mean. She called me the other night and said Tyler had set up a dinner with his mom. She was... so excited."

The woman's grief overtook her then, and she melted into her husband's hold.

"You're sure... that it's her?" Mr. Bremmer asked, and Mac cleared his throat and nodded.

"Her roommate was able to give us Natalie's hair and toothbrush. We ran a DNA comparison with... with her remains... to be sure."

"I'm so sorry to ask, but... we're still checking every possibility here," Don explained. "Was there anything Natalie mentioned in the past few days that seemed strange? Anyone she was worried about or maybe scared of?"

Mr. Bremmer shook his head.

"No. Her last few calls were all about her research project and how well she did and... and Tyler. She was the happiest I'd ever heard her."

And that final realization of how cruel it was that Natalie should lose her life when it was on such a high note... that was the drop of water that sent the pain of her loss overflowing the dam her father had tried to hold.

They knew they'd gotten all they could at this point, so Don and Mac both stood, and as Don headed for the door, Mac walked over and put his hand on Mr. Bremmer's shoulder.

"You take all the time you need. I'm so sorry for your loss."

Once they were outside the room, Don leaned against the closed door and sighed.

"I want to find this guy and peel his skin off. I mean, we've chased bad guys worse than this, but damn, Mac... I think about Jo seeing her kid like that, and I just..."

Flack leaned his head back and closed his eyes, trying to will away the rush of emotion. Mac let him stand there, the din of the busy precinct swirling around them as they both tried to let go of the shared moment of tragedy with the Bremmers.

"You going back over there?" Don asked, his eyes opening again, his sense of peace at least outwardly restored.

"Yeah, after I stop back by the lab."

"I know maybe she isn't ready, but... everyone wants to see her. Lindsay especially." Don paused a minute and then shrugged. "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but Danny says she's been crying in the lab all day. And Sid... he's barely talking to anyone, and, I mean... this is Sid."

Mac nodded, completely understanding. The whole team knew their priority was finding Tyler's killer, but their worry about Jo wasn't something they could just ignore.

"I'm sure she'd want to see you all. I'll check with her tonight, okay?"

"All right. And we're executing some warrants tonight to try to shake loose some info on Tuffi's whereabouts. Thanks to that FBI file, narcotics has some ideas about where we should look. I'll buzz you if we get anything solid."

A quick thank-you to Don sent Mac toward the door, and he fought down the habitual urge to turn back and say he'd ride with Don on the warrant runs. It was the kind of thing he did because he could qualify it as part of his job and because, honestly, he didn't have anywhere else to be.

Except tonight he did, and nothing short of looking Tyler's killer in the eye was more important.

* * *

><p>Jo pulled the door closed and left Ellie and Brianna to their movie and the plate of cookies she'd just delivered. Having her friend near was at least keeping Ellie from obsessing over what had happened, and Jo had never been so grateful for the quality of friends her kids attracted than she was today.<p>

Tyler's roommates had come by earlier to bring his laptop over in case they needed anything off of it, and when they'd offered to help with "anything," Paulette had sent them out with a shopping list that the boys had happily gone off to fill.

There were phone calls... so many that Jo felt like she never wanted to hear a phone ring ever again. Her mother was fielding most of them, but there had been a few from the department... the commissioner and the chief, and finally Ted Carver, who wanted her to know his whole family was praying for them.

Somewhere in the midst of the swirl of sound, Russ had finally arrived. She knew his brother was on his way to New York because he'd called and spoken with Paulette earlier, before Jo had finally relented and taken any calls. And God, did Russ need him to get here. Because as broken as she felt inside, her ex-husband looked it on the outside... shattered, jagged edges threatening to tear him apart if he moved the wrong way.

He had bypassed her at first, which surprised her, heading instead to Ellie to offer what comfort he could. It was only later as Jo sat in front of a plate of food her mother had insisted she try to eat that Russ had settled down beside her.

_"I feel like everything I want to say to you is so... pointless."_

_Jo leaned her head against his arm._

_"You're the only person on earth with a hole in their heart that matches mine. You don't have to say anything."_

But somehow giving him permission to stay silent felt like it had been the wrong thing. Russ had sat there, his pain simmering. He was powerless, and that wasn't something FBI agent Russ Josephson was used to feeling. It was choking him, and finally Jo had done the only thing she could think to do. She had taken his hand, walked him over to the couch, and pulled him into her arms.

It had taken time. Minutes had passed as she just held him, her body rocking slightly, some nonsensical song from her memory humming through her. And then he'd collapsed against her, his arms clinging to her hips as he screamed and cried out the rage he felt at the loss of his only child.

He was sleeping now, his body drained and prone on the couch. And Paulette was in Tyler's room, where she was staying. Jo was almost positive she'd heard her mother crying as she'd made her way to Ellie's door, but the older woman insisted she was fine and was just reading some before going to bed.

It wasn't until she got to the kitchen that it hit her. For the first time all day, it was quiet.

_"What's the worst part?"_

_"When everything gets quiet... when you lose track of it for a minute and your mind plays tricks on you because there isn't enough noise around to protect you from the silence."_

Mac's words played through her mind, and Jo shivered, suddenly terrified of what might find her there in the quiet.

She grabbed her cell phone and house key from the entry table and closed the door quietly behind her as she fled toward the elevator. Her fingers stabbed impatiently at the "arrow down" button. And as she prayed for the doors to open, she knew the quiet had stalked her into the hallway, gaining on her, waiting to pounce.

Finally the ding of the bell came and the doors opened, and Jo moved inside, willing the car to move to the lobby at twice its normal speed.

She had never noticed how quiet the elevator could be.

When the doors opened, she almost hurt herself racing through them, her arm catching one of the edges. Then she pushed open the front entrance of the building, and the cold rush of air was followed by the sound of horns honking and tires squealing and bits of conversation yelled inaudibly from windows and street corners.

The quiet was gone, and Jo melted down onto the front steps, almost laughing at the security of the dissonant noise that made up Manhattan's score.

"Ma'am, is everything okay?"

Jo glanced up and was surprised to see a uniformed officer standing in front of her. She could only imagine how she must look... half insane if his concerned expression was any indication.

"I just needed some air."

"Yes, ma'am. Well, we're right out here if you need anything."

She smiled and let her eyes follow him back down to the sidewalk. A black-and-white sat parked right out front, another halfway down the block, and it occurred to her that someone had sent them to keep the reporters away.

When she saw the black Avalanche move up and park across the street, Jo's shoulders lowered a full inch, the tension of her near panic attack slipping away. Mac climbed out of the truck, a stack of reports tucked under his arm, and crossed toward her, stopping momentarily to talk to the uniformed officers before he made his way to the steps.

"Did they tell you I just ran out here like a crazy person?"

He smiled at her description and sat down beside her.

"Everything okay?"

It was one of those questions that was wholly inappropriate given the gravity of what was not okay, but really, what else was he supposed to say, 'you falling apart completely yet or just a little bit'?"

"It got quiet."

"Ah," Mac said, nodding. "Yeah."

"Ellie's in lockdown with Brianna, Mama's hiding in Tyler's room so I don't see her cry, and Russ... Russ is asleep on my couch. And it just... it just got so... still."

She felt him move closer, his hand finding hers, and she sniffled and looked up at him.

"How are they all doing?"

"They want to come see you," Mac answered, knowing who she meant without naming names. "I told them I'd ask."

"They can come whenever they want to. And you tell Adam he doesn't have to worry about what to say. You know how he is. He'll sit in there at those computers all night long, torturing himself trying to figure it out."

A slight smile crossed his face, and Jo felt his hand grip hers tighter.

"How about you not worry about everyone else for a little while, okay? We all owe you on that front anyway."

The truth was, he probably hadn't meant anything by it other than what he'd literally said aloud, but Jo didn't take it that way. Instead, she heard something that made her feel like an obligation, and despite that gut instinct her mother had told her trust, she couldn't fight off the unease that stray thought left behind.

When she stood and walked down the steps, she felt the resistance in Mac's hand before he surrendered his hold and let her go. She stood on the sidewalk, gaze fixed on the ground, trying to convince herself to let it go. But when she couldn't, Jo looked up and caught his eye.

"It's too much, Mac, isn't it? I mean, all this... it's so much to ask you to..."

She paused, faltering, afraid she was about to cut off the very line of connection that was keeping her walking and talking and breathing. But she found her voice again because if her gut was wrong, if she was hurting him...

"Things are only gonna get worse. It's barely sinking in for Ellie, and Russ is gonna need... he's gonna need and need, and I can't not be there for him, and I am barely staying upright, and it's just the first day. It's day one of this awful nightmare, and it's just... it's too much to ask you to stay here in the middle of it. I mean, it's too much to ask even from a partner, right?"

For a beat, his face was unchanged, the expression the one she'd been met with as she explained her devastation over what had happened at the bureau in D.C. or when he'd listened as she confessed her fears about Ellie learning the truth about her birth mother. Then Mac stood, the files placed on the step they'd used for outdoor seating, and he walked down to stand in front of her.

"Jo... there are reasons that you and I don't talk about certain things. Maybe we let that go on too long. And now is not the time, obviously. But you and I both know that... whatever we are, it's more than partners... and it was there long before last night. Now maybe you don't want to need me to be here. But I need you to let me. For me, okay?"

Her arms were around him before she'd even realized she'd moved, and Jo felt him hesitate only a moment before his encircled her body.

"I'm an idiot. Just... I'm an idiot. Of course I need you here. I just... "

"It's okay," he said, chuckling softly, a puff of warm air from his mouth teasing at her ear. "It's okay."

Very little was okay, though, except for this... except for Mac holding her and Jo deciding her mother's advice had been absolute gospel.

If Mac Taylor was all that was holding her together, then she would let him.


	5. Chapter 5

Mac glanced at the clock and then drew his pen along the signature line of the final report he had to approve. Closing the file, he let it fall to the top of the stack on the floor beside Jo's bed, a heavy sigh rattling through his body as exhaustion and worry battled for his attention. Jo was asleep, her hand wrapped around his left thigh because his seated position had made it the easiest place she could grab hold of him. Whatever was pulling at her in her dreams, it had come again, but this time, despite the start in her body, she hadn't woken up. Instead, she'd reflexively reached out, her hand making contact with him.

Literally feeling him there seemed to have been enough to let her ease away from the mysterious taunting thing and back into a restful sleep, but he'd been unable to resist the urge to touch her back, to let his fingers fall gently against her cheek so he could brush back the strands of hair that had floated across her face in sleep. Honestly, though, he knew that hint of connection was more for him than it was for Jo.

He had never imagined it would be a bad thing that he'd taken so much time to figure out how he felt. Getting his head on straight, knowing his heart... that had seemed the only fair thing to do before he opened his mouth and made any promises to the woman who had come into his life and found a way to both unsettle and delight him at almost every turn.

At first, he'd been in outright denial, telling himself that the steak dinner payout of the bet Jo had won her first day in the lab hadn't been one of the best nights he could remember spending with anyone in a very long time. And when it became habit to find himself out having a beer and a burger with her or dropping by Ellie's soccer games on the weekends, when she managed to convince him to go look at Christmas windows and showed zero fear when confronting him about his disgust for department politics or his lack of concern for his own physical well-being... well, then Mac had decided that his respect for her had just made friendship happen quickly, made him more at ease with building the connection.

When her flirting started to make him uncomfortable in that way only a woman a man's attracted to can manage, Mac had tried to ignore it. Jo was a natural-born flirt, her Southern charm oozing out of her, and he'd seen her play Adam, Danny, Sheldon, Don, and Sid like fiddles, using her smiles and giggles along the way. He was just another mark for her need to know things, to get information, to build a reservoir of knowledge about all of them, and that's all the thinly veiled comments and partial innuendos were about.

But then slowly, something about the way she spoke to him with such a lack of pretense, her guard completely down, her trust in him so deep... it had made Mac start to wonder if he was trying not to see what was happening because he knew without question that Jo was not a woman who would buy into the myth of his damaged soul. She wasn't built to try to help him be happy again. She would expect him to admit he knew he could do it, that if the right person stood by him, unwilling to let him hide from the hardest parts of love, that he was fully capable of feeling joy and trusting in the future despite the awful scars he would always carry.

Having asked the question of himself, the answer was obvious. And that was why he'd taken the time to work it out, to make sure he knew what he was doing before he drew her any further into his life.

But last night... watching Jo so uncertain about him, about what she had a right to ask for where he was concerned... that had been an unexpected and painful reprimand for letting things go unsaid for too long.

And yet even knowing that, he would have to wait a little longer to finally give voice to the depth and truth of what he now was sure of. While he'd been waiting for certainty, Jo's life had spun on a tragic axis, and any declarations on his part would have to be held until her world was at least starting to steady again.

But she had needed to hear something last night, some promise on his part that she had every right to expect him to be there, to want him there, and so now Mac had to hope that the words he'd chosen were enough to make sure she didn't expend any energy worrying over something that she didn't need to fear at all. He'd understood from that first moment in the warehouse when his eyes had seen Tyler's name on the burned I.D. that he would do whatever it took to see her through this, and then... then he would say all the things he knew had to wait for another moment, someday when Jo could see that she would be happy again, too, even if she would miss her son for the rest of her life.

The door creaked slightly as it opened, and Mac looked up to see Ellie's face in the entryway. Her movements were cautious, and she was clearly taking care not to wake her mother, but the need in her expression was undeniable. So Mac waved her in, relinquishing his spot, his body moving slowly away from Jo, his hand holding hers as he pulled his leg away until he placed her palm gently against the bed.

As he stood, Ellie moved closer, and when he opened his arms, she stepped into him, hugging him tightly. Then she let go, moving herself onto the bed so she could lie down beside her mother. As the girl settled down, Jo instinctively reached out for her child, pulling her close, and Mac picked up his files and made his way to the door, leaving them alone.

The smell of coffee greeted him as he quietly closed the bedroom door and headed down the hall. Paulette Danville was busy in the kitchen, washing up dishes from whatever must have been causing the delicious aroma coming from the oven.

"Good morning," he said, rounding the corner to sit on the outside breakfast bar stools.

"Good morning, detective. I bet you could use a strong cup of coffee."

"I could, yes, ma'am."

Paulette smiled and grabbed for a cup, pouring the dark liquid to the brim before she passed it to him.

"So Jo doesn't exaggerate. You don't sleep much, do you, son?"

Mac took a sip of coffee and chuckled.

"Do I look that tired?"

"Tired... worried... determined. For a man who seems like he's not a big talker, that face of yours says a lot."

"Most people would disagree with you," Mac replied. "Except your daughter. She's gotten pretty good at reading it."

Paulette smiled and picked up a dishtowel so she could start drying the dishes she'd already cleaned. Mac glanced back over his shoulder a moment before catching her eye again.

"Is Russ still here?"

"No, his brother Ben showed up at near the crack of dawn. I was up, and he said he didn't want to wake Jo and he'd call later."

Mac nodded and took another drink from his cup. A beat later, company joined them as Brianna made her way to the breakfast bar.

"Good morning, darling. Breakfast is almost ready."

Brianna nodded and leaned against the counter, chin resting on her folded arms.

"I feel like I'm not doing anything. We're just in there talking or watching movies or sleeping. How is that helping?"

"It helps more than you think," Mac offered, sensing the young girl's genuine distress. "Just having someone there that you know cares about you, to make you feel like you're not alone... sometimes that's the thing you need most after you lose someone you love."

Paulette poured a glass of orange juice and placed it down in front of Brianna, who sighed and sat up taller, pulling the glass toward her.

"You listen to the detective, Brianna. He gives good advice."

Mac smiled slightly and took another sip of his coffee. Then his cell phone rang, and as he pulled it out of his pocket. Seeing Flack's name on the screen, he stepped away and headed into the living room before answering.

"Hey, Don."

"Mac, we got a location on Tuffi. We're getting ready to roll out."

"Text me the address. I'm on my way."

As he hung up, Mac found Paulette walking toward him, his files stacked up in one hand, a portable cup of coffee in the other.

"I've had a daughter in law enforcement long enough to know what early morning calls mean. I'll tell Jo you had to go."

"I do, but if she needs me..."

Paulette smiled and handed off the files.

"If she won't call you, I will."

Mac double-checked that he had his badge and keys-his gun was locked in the safe in his car-and then he took the cup of coffee and offered a quick thank-you before he moved to the front door. He was barely to the Avalanche before his cell chimed, and he glanced down at the address Flack had sent over. Mac opened the driver's side door and put his files and the coffee inside before he went to the back door and opened it, pulling his bulletproof vest free. He strapped it on and then unlocked his gun safe. A quick check told him he had a fully-loaded clip, and Mac slipped the weapon into his holster and then climbed in the driver's seat.

It wasn't until he stopped to actually put his keys in the ignition that he saw that the uniformed officers who had been fairly stationary the night before, mostly just eyes on the street, were now fully engaged, a gaggle of reporters doing their best to get as close to the front of Jo's building as possible. He cursed silently, wishing he could do something to make them disappear, knowing he was powerless. The fact that there were unis there at all to try to help was already courtesy of Ted Carver's old connections. So Mac turned his focus back to the thing he could do, and he started the truck and pulled out towards their prime suspect in the warehouse fire.

It took him twenty minutes to reach the staging area Flack and the ESU team had established, which was a full block away from the Brooklyn brownstone where their target was supposed to be hiding. Mac saw Lindsay and Danny already vested up and ready to move, and he headed toward them, eager to make some progress on this investigation so he could tell all of the grieving families something about who had stolen away their loved ones.

He almost missed it. The flash of recognition nearly slipped by Mac, dismissed as him being tired, but then his gut told him, no, he'd really seen the face he thought he'd seen. So Mac stopped a few feet away from his team and stormed off to his left, his strides lengthening, pace quickening as he gave pursuit. When his hand fell on Russ' shoulder, he was not gentle, jerking the FBI agent around and slamming him into the wall.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Russ fought to catch his breath, the blow against the wall having knocked the wind out of him. Mac released him but only so he could reach down and pull Russ's 9mm out of his waistband.

"Don't do this, Russ. Don't be this guy, not now."

"I can't just do nothing!"

Mac was seething, even if he understood the basis of Russ' feelings. He was helpless, his son dead, no peace to be found, and he wanted someone to pay. But vigilante justice wasn't something Mac could sanction, not even now, after a horrifying crime had wounded the person he cared about most in the world.

"This accomplishes nothing, Russ, except you throwing your career away and dishonoring everything you ever taught Tyler about being a good man."

Footsteps thundered toward them, and he looked up to see Flack and two patrol officers.

"Mac, everything okay?"

He nodded in response to Flack's question, and then pushed Russ toward the patrol officers.

"Put him in your car and do not let him move until I say so."

Russ looked furious, but he went without arguing, and Mac and Don headed back to the ESU team. Danny and Lindsay lined up with them, and they made their way into the brownstone up to the third floor. They found the apartment their informant had identified as belonging to Tuffi's "most steady" girlfriend and took in the door, each of them shouting their authority as they went through the door.

Their prey was in the bedroom, but Tuffi didn't look much like a threatening drug dealer. He was tied to the bed with silk scarves while his girlfriend stood over him mid-striptease. She screamed as they made entry and dove for her robe as Tuffi struggled to get out of his bonds.

"There are a whole lot of grieving parents in this city who want to put a bullet in your head, so if I were you, I'd be calm and let us get you out of here in one piece."

Mac finished speaking and then turned and headed back out of the room, a small bob of his head indicating that Lindsay should follow.

"Lindsay, I need you to do something for me."

"Anything, Mac."

"Go downstairs, get Russ, and take him back to Jo's. So far, he's just been stupid. Hopefully we can keep it that way."

She put her hand on his arm and nodded.

"You got it."

Lindsay headed out, wasting no time. Mac took a deep breath, steadying himself, his anger reined back in. A beat later, Danny and Don emerged with Tuffi dressed and in handcuffs. Two ESU officers had the girlfriend, who they escorted out of the house and downstairs.

"Man, I didn't burn up no one, okay? I didn't do nothing."

Mac leaned in and grabbed a handful of Tuffi's shirt, but it was a planned move made to make the suspect think he was out of control. It worked. He saw a flash of fear streak across the other man's eyes.

"You sure don't seem surprised about why we're here. So you tell me, Tuffi, if you didn't burn up that warehouse, what the hell do you know about who did?"

* * *

><p>"Did you think about who we might ask to be pallbearers?"<p>

Jo looked down at the plate of breakfast casserole her mother had made and realized she'd only taken one bite since it had been set in front of her. She forced herself to put another forkful in her mouth, knowing a lecture would be forthcoming if she didn't make an effort.

"Um... Tim, Seth, and Charlie. Those are his best friends. I'll call them later on. And, well, Ben since he's Tyler's uncle and godfather. And I was thinking I might ask Mac and Don."

Her mother sat down on the stool beside her as she set a cup of fresh coffee in front of them both.

"And the one other thing I needed to ask... the funeral home wanted to know if you'd considered... I guess families of burn victims often choose cremation..."

The word sent her stomach rolling over, and it was all Jo could do to keep the two meager bites of food she'd eaten down.

"No. They're not burning my son again."

The image of Tyler's body flashed through her mind, the details overwhelming her... the smell, the feel of the charred fabric, and the sounds and textures of his ruined wallet. She felt dizzy trying to fight it off, her eyes closed as if it would somehow push the horror away. Then Jo felt her mother's arms around her.

"I didn't think about it, baby. I'm sorry. We won't talk about it anymore."

The words were faint, but Jo heard them, registering the meaning enough that she felt the dizziness ebb. Her mother held fast, though, giving her time to push herself away when she was ready.

"I need to send a note to Natalie's parents. I have to remember to ask Mac for the address."

Jo righted herself and pushed the plate away from her. Instead of thinking about trying to force herself to eat any more, she gripped her coffee cup with both hands and drank deeply.

"Did you remember to warn Brianna's mom about the reporters?"

Her mother nodded, and Jo sighed and leaned against the counter more.

"Like Ellie's not upset enough. Having to sneak in and out the back entrance to keep her from hearing those monsters shouting at her..."

She knew on some level that the reporters were just doing their job, but they were vultures on her block now, one child's memory at stake, the other's emotional health at risk. Ellie had already seen them when Sarah had come to take the girls out to do some errands for a school project that neither really had the will to work on, but at least it was a way to distract them and get them out of Ellie's room for a few hours. Jo had rushed out into the hall at Ellie's cries when they'd all retreated back upstairs, a uniformed officer on their heels.

_"They're staying behind the perimeter, ma'am, but they're loud. I'm sorry."_

Jo had thanked him and hugged Ellie, calming her down before they made their way to the back of the building. Sarah had gone around and gotten her car alone, and then picked the girls up in the rear alley, which was protected by a resident-controlled parking gate. Armed with Jo's gate clicker, Sarah would simply pull in the back when she returned, taking up Jo's empty spot, since she'd left her car at the crime scene.

She hadn't even thought of that until she'd seen the empty space, and was glad she kept the clicker in her purse and not in the console the way she had before she once locked it and her keys in the car, trapping herself in the garage until Ellie came down to let her in the stairwell door. Most likely Mac or one of the team had taken it back to the lab and left it in her parking spot. She'd have to remember to ask.

"Your detective has a way about him, that's for sure. Little Brianna was so worried this morning, and he managed to put her at ease quick as can be. And Ellie seems to like him a lot."

The change of topic drew Jo's eyes to her mother. She offered a slight smile and nodded.

"He's quite the charmer, not that you'd know it right off. He seems pretty gruff when you first meet him, but then... he and Ellie have been buds for a while now, though. She had to do a project on the military, and she asked Mac if she could interview him. Next thing I knew, she'd invited him to a soccer game, and now he's her biggest fan."

"Like I said, he has a way about him."

That he did. Jo could admit to herself that the fear she'd felt last night talking to him out on the front steps had been intense. The idea that he might say yes, she was asking too much... it seemed unlike him and yet she'd been petrified of his response. Despite the fear, though, she'd had to ask. Mac meant too much to her to risk hurting him, not when she had some ability to head it off. But his answer hadn't been anything she needed to fear. Instead, it had lifted up a small portion of the weight on her heart and cast it aside.

_"Jo... there are reasons that you and I don't talk about certain things. Maybe we let that go on too long. And now is not the time, obviously. But you and I both know that... whatever we are, it's more than partners... and it was there long before last night. Now maybe you don't want to need me to be here. But I need you to let me. For me, okay?"_

Hearing him say he wanted to be there, that it was what he needed... Jo had grabbed hold of that and found a sense of comfort she wasn't expecting. It mattered to her that this was his choice, that he was willing to walk this horrible road. And she knew that a part of what had created all those thoughts and feelings they had yet to discuss was that she had known this was the man he was... that when she was at her lowest, he would be her strength, that he could give her support without thinking she was weak.

"Do you want me to get that, honey?"

Jo snapped out of her reverie and looked at her mother. The question must have been written on her face, because Paulette motioned toward the front door.

"Oh, no. I'll get it."

She slipped off the stool and moved toward the door, a second knock making her pick up her pace a bit. It seemed early for Sarah to be back with the girls, so Jo peeked through the peephole, worried that maybe a reporter had managed to sneak upstairs.

When she saw Lindsay's face, she let out a relieved breath and opened the door.

When she saw Russ' standing off to her friend's right side, a forlorn expression on his face, her relief evaporated.

"Lindsay, hey."

The two women hugged, and then both stepped inside fully so Russ could move past them. He headed straight for the bathroom and closed the door behind him, and Jo looked to Lindsay for her answers.

"We got a lead on a possible suspect. Russ was at the scene when we got there."

"What? How did he even find out about it?"

"The FBI helped us track down the suspect. One of his friends must have called him."

Jo sighed and walked deeper into the apartment. When she made it to the couch, she sank down and dropped her head into her hands.

"What the hell was he trying to do?"

Lindsay sat down beside her, a comforting hand dropping on Jo's back.

"He's a grieving father. It was stupid, but... I get it."

So did she, though Jo still thought it was reckless and dangerous, and she had an overwhelming urge to grab Russ by the collar and shake him senseless when he finally had the nerve to face her.

"Mac must have been furious."

"Oh, yeah," Lindsay said, her words drawn out and overemphasized to prove her point. "Russ is lucky he didn't get his head put through a brick wall."

Jo nodded and leaned back, her body pressing into the pillows that lined the couch.

Lindsay mirrored her position and looked at her long and hard.

"How are you doing?"

"Truth?"

Lindsay smiled.

"Always."

"I feel like my body's forgotten how to feel anything but pain."

"I can't even imagine. When I saw Shane Casey holding Lucy... the fear I felt in that moment... it still haunts me. And I'm just... Jo, I'm so sorry this happened to you."

Jo reached out and took Lindsay's hand, squeezing it gently.

"I know how hard this must be for you all... but I hope you realize that... knowing people I can trust with my life are making sure the investigation and all the evidence is handled the right way, it makes a difference, Linds. I'm not sure I'd have the little sanity left that I do if I didn't know what good hands this case was in."

"Well, I could lie and tell you we're all not kind of a mess," Lindsay said, a slight smile on her face to ease the serious reality of her words. "But the truth is, everyone's just... so sad and so worried about you. And I'm a total wreck... you should see me trying to load test vials with chronic teary eyes."

The image made them both chuckle, and then Jo shook her head.

"Being a mom makes this job hard sometimes. Your worst nightmare is always getting thrown in your face."

Lindsay nodded.

"Yeah. But at the same time, I think... at least we can do something about this, you know? I mean, we can't undo it, and God knows we wish we could, but... if we do our jobs, then someone pays for what happened. Justice gets done even if it's not enough."

"It's not enough," Jo said, her voice breaking. "But it's the only difference we can make most of the time... holding someone accountable for the wrong they've done."

She was tired of crying, so Jo fought off the urge to break down. She didn't really care if Lindsay saw her tears, she just didn't have the energy for it anymore. They didn't make her feel better; they didn't make the pain lessen. Instead, the tiny droplets just made her feel like she was losing the last shred of control she had over anything. And so Jo had declared herself done with tears, even if she had to fight the battle against them nearly every moment of the day.

"I think some of the guys were gonna come by later, if that's okay."

Jo looked over at Lindsay, who was clearly trying not to break down herself, and nodded.

"You tell 'em to come on by. I can't guarantee my mother won't force them to eat, but..."

"You've met them. Does anyone ever have to force that crew to eat?"

The two women stood, their arms finding each other for a tight embrace, and then Lindsay reluctantly stepped back.

"Well, I should probably get back to the lab. But I'll come by again soon, okay?"

"You better. And bring Lucy. Ellie would love to see her."

Jo walked Lindsay to the door and the two exchanged another quick hug before the younger woman headed back to work. Jo closed the door and then moved back into the living room, sinking into the same spot on the couch. She leaned her head back against the pillows, her eyes burning... from the crying or in protest to the few hours of sleep she'd gotten the past two days, she didn't know. But she let her eyelids fall shut, the clatter of her mother cleaning or pulling down another set of dishes and cookware keeping the apartment from growing too quiet.

"I'm sorry."

She hadn't heard Russ walk into the room... another sure sign of how worn out she already was, but Jo sighed and opened her eyes, focusing her gaze on her ex-husband.

"Sorry you went down there or sorry Mac made you come here?"

Russ took in a deep breath and then sank into the chair across from her, his shoulders drooping.

"I just... I needed to do something."

"Then get the FBI to open files faster, or do something to help the other families, or go sit in there with my mother and help plan your son's funeral. But do not make me watch you self-destruct, Russ. Don't you dare do that to me."

She was angrier than she'd expected, the trigger pulled by his inability to look her in the eye. He hadn't gone there to do "something." He had gone there for revenge, and Jo knew it.

"Did you even bother to find out if they had a real link between this guy and the fire?"

"He's a drug dealer," Russ said, his own voice rising as he finally lifted his head and looked toward her. "How many times have we both seen innocent people get taken out because one scumbag dealer is trying to get rid of another?"

"So because he's a scumbag dealer, it's okay to just shoot him in the street like an animal, even if he didn't actually set the fire that killed Tyler? Do you hear yourself right now?"

"Look, I know you think Mac can do no wrong, but damn it, I can't just let these bastards walk away from what they did. What if the NYPD can't make it stick? What if something goes wrong with the evidence? And don't act like it doesn't happen, Jo. Taylor's not perfect, and neither are the people who work for him."

Jo stared at him a moment, her heart hardening a little as she realized what was really happening right now. She stood and crossed her arms.

"We just lost our child, Russ. Our son is dead and somehow the both of us have to learn to live with it, and I'd like to believe we can be there for each other while we try to do that. But if you dare to drag your jealousy of Mac Taylor into the middle of my grief, I swear to God, I will push you out of this door and leave you on your own, do you hear me? I have all I can handle right now, Russ. I cannot take any more, especially not that."

She hadn't realized she was beginning to yell until her mother came into view. The look of concern on Paulette's face told Jo how upset she must have sounded, and she forced herself to draw in a slow, steady breath.

"Russ, why don't you come into the kitchen and let me fix you something to eat?"

"I'm not really hungry, Paulette."

"Come into the kitchen with me anyway, then."

Ex-mother-in-law or no, he understood a life raft being tossed his way when it came, and Russ stood and walked out of the living room. Jo took a few steps, moving closer to her mother, her hand reaching out for her arm.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Paulette offered, her hand settling gently over top of Jo's. "Why don't you get out of here for a little while, honey? Take a walk or just... get out of this apartment."

"Where am I supposed to go, Mama? Is there someplace outside that door where I won't feel like I'm about to fall apart?"

A knock at the door made both women jump, and after gathering herself, Jo walked over and checked to see who was outside. When she saw one of the uniformed officers from downstairs, she twisted the deadbolts and turned the knob.

"Is everything okay?"

The officer nodded.

"Yes, ma'am, everything is fine, but Detective Taylor radioed over, asked if one of us could drive you down to the precinct. He said that he and Detective Flack need to see you."

It seemed odd to Jo that Mac wouldn't have called her himself, but if they were in the field, maybe it'd been easier to radio. He also probably remembered she didn't have her car and had solved the problem by borrowing one of the black-and-whites stationed on the street in front of her building to get her from A to B.

"Mama, you can stay here until the girls get back?"

"I'll be here, and I'll make sure other people stay out of trouble."

Jo rolled her eyes and hugged her mother.

"Good luck with that. I tried and failed, miserably."

Paulette chuckled and waited as Jo grabbed her purse, cell phone, and keys from the entry table, and then Jo heard her lock the door behind her.

The ride to the precinct was short and silent, the officer clearly too nervous to say much, and the radio chatter filled in the quiet. Jo realized she'd barely even looked at herself in the mirror before she'd headed out and was grateful when she peeked at the small reflection afforded by her compact and realized she didn't resemble the broken mess she felt like on the inside.

The looks on the faces of her fellow officers as they nodded towards her on the sidewalk or just inside the front door of the station house told her how personally they were all taking this case. And when she saw Don sitting on the edge of his desk, Jo headed straight for him, not the least bit self-conscious when he pulled her into a hug.

"For the record, I'm pretty sure you're the toughest person I know this side of Mac Taylor. And you know that's saying something."

She smiled and stepped back, her hand rising up to touch Flack's cheek for a moment before she took another step away from him and cleared her throat.

"So Mac said you guys needed to see me."

"Yeah, let's head on back."

Don moved towards the interview rooms and stopped outside the observation area for room two. He motioned for her to go inside, and Jo saw Mac was already there, his eyes fixed on the two-way mirror in front of him.

"Hey."

Her voice drew his attention toward her, and Mac walked over as Don backed out of the room and shut the door behind him. When Mac took hold of her hands, Jo knew something important had happened since she'd last seen him, something he clearly wanted her to hear from him and no one else.

"We know who set the fire, Jo. We know who and we know why."

For a second, she wasn't sure she could stay on her feet, but Mac stepped into her, his hands finding her waist to steady her while his words sank in completely.

"I'm okay," she said, more to reassure him than because it was true. But when she went to step closer to the two-way mirror, Mac didn't try to stop her. Instead he moved with her, his hand staying against her lower back in case she needed the support.

"That's... that's the suspect?"

She knew she sounded doubtful, disbelieving, but who could blame her? Jo had half expected a monster with two heads. But this? She had never expected this.

"That's him."

Jo would have never believed it were Mac Taylor not standing there saying the words. Because the man in the interrogation room wasn't some random street thug or even a mid-level drug dealer. He was Ramon Delasentora Jr., and he was the son of one of the most notorious drug lords on the eastern seaboard.

Ramon Sr. had killed dozens of people, but no law enforcement agency had ever been able to make a murder stick directly to the kingpin himself. But now the drug lord's son had killed the son of a cop and an FBI agent.

"I haven't told the bureau yet," Mac said, his hand still there, the weight of it the one constant Jo was holding on to as her mind swirled and tried to figure out how this could be happening. "They'll want to use Junior to get to his father. I'll try to fight them if you want me to. I'll do everything I can to keep jurisdiction over the case."

Jo thought about all the other parents who wouldn't get a say in what happened with the man who had murdered their children. How many of them would want Ramon Jr. to pay directly? How many would understand the value of getting the bigger threat of Ramon Sr. off the streets? Hell, she was a cop, and she wasn't even sure she could care about saving the world now, not when her son's murderer was sitting on the other side of the wall in front of her.

"Did he confess?" she asked, and Mac shook his head.

"We have enough to nail him. Between the forensics, the statement we got from Tuffi, and the evidence we found at Junior's place, we've got him. But he's been playing games. Won't ask for a lawyer, but he won't talk either."

She stared hard at the man in the interrogation room - a boy, really, barely a few years older than the young men and women he'd killed. He was like so many of the criminals they encountered... too arrogant, too privileged to understand the cost of what they'd done. It was all a game to him, not just the cat and mouse he was engaging in now, but everything. He probably hadn't even thought about the real loss of life possible in the fire... because nothing in his life had consequences.

But this did. This time, he didn't get to just walk away, even if it was for the greater good. Not without consequences.

"Make him confess. You can turn him over to anyone you want after that... but make him admit what he did. Make him say it out loud."

Mac stepped closer to her, his head resting against hers a moment before he moved back and headed for the door. She glanced back at him, comforted to see the look of absolute determination that she knew so well etched on his face as Mac walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.


	6. Chapter 6

"You think you're special... but the truth is, boys like you are a cliché we run across all the time in this job."

Mac was working hard to keep his voice even, the knot of emotion he felt held at bay for now as he focused on the one concrete thing he could do for Jo and for Russ and the other parents whose lives would be scarred forever because of Ramon Delasentora Jr.'s crime. The man in question did little more than posture as Mac spoke, his determination to pretend he wasn't scared to death allowing him to remain cocky and full of false bravado. But already, the veneer was slipping. The word "boy" clearly pushed Junior's buttons, but he fought off the reaction that was itching to get out.

"See, it's something that all kinds of successful men have in common, Junior. They claw their way to the top, have a son, groom him for the future, for a life of power. But the thing is, you all have your lives handed to you... you never have to fight for anything but your daddies attention, and you never quite measure up in your fathers' eyes. So you all look for a way to prove yourselves... doesn't matter if your dad runs a billion-dollar fund on Wall Street or the biggest drug empire on the Eastern seaboard."

"You just keep talking, cop. You keep running your mouth."

"And what, you're gonna do something about it?" Mac stood and slammed his hands down on the table between them. "You're going to prison for the rest of your life, Junior. I'm not too worried about you and your threats."

"You got nothing on me, 'cause you're wrong. I'm like my old man. I got stones, and I stay clean."

The door opened, and Don entered, files in hand, right on time. Mac had asked for a good head start on the interrogation, needing a read on Junior before he decided which card to play first. Based on what he'd seen so far, his gut instinct on the right strategy was looking pretty solid.

"What are you," Junior asked, eyeing Flack, "the bad cop?"

"We're all bad cops where you're concerned, scumbag."

Junior scoffed and spared a glance at Mac before shifting in his chair to try to make himself seem taller, more invincible. Mac sat back down and leaned back in his chair himself, affecting a relaxed posture that mirrored nothing of what he felt inside.

"You know another difference between you and your father? He may be a monster, but he learned a long time ago that minimizing his collateral damage was the best way to stay low on the police radar."

Mac leaned forward again, elbows on the table. Don walked over and sat down the files he'd brought with him. For the moment, Mac ignored them, building on the foundation he'd already laid.

"Your old man? We wouldn't be processing eight bodies or have two victims with critical burns in the hospital, a half dozen others banged up. He would've done his homework."

Now Mac reached for one of the files, the one he'd asked Don to leave on top, and he slammed it open, pulling free a photo of Tuffi.

"He wasn't even there, Junior. Tuffi was long gone by the time you set that building on fire. Off banging his girlfriend, not a care in the world. He sure as hell was thinking about the rich kid he was stealing clientele from on fraternity row."

It was only a minor shift as Ramon Junior's face paled a bit, but Mac noticed. But then the wannabe drug lord pushed the photo aside.

"I don't even know that fool."

"Of course you don't," Don said, chiming in. "You've only been paying off half the NYU underground party crowd to tell you when and where they see him. What's the matter, Junior, you couldn't handle a little competition for your frat clients? Worried all the big blow orders were gonna go to Tuffi? Or was daddy disappointed in the profit you'd been turning and you were looking for a way to bring in some more coin?"

_"If_ I had been paying people to look for this idiot, I guarantee you, nobody would be talking about it."

Mac leaned closer, erasing some of the space between the suspect's face and his.

"Because they're afraid of your father, not you. Don't get confused. Lucky for us, we don't need them to testify. You not only didn't kill the guy you were after and ended up taking out nearly a dozen innocent kids, you don't even know how to clean up a mess once you've made it."

A reach of his hand drew the other files closer to Mac. He opened them up systematically, pounding the evidence reports down in front of Junior's face.

"Shoe prints... not right by the doors, because most of those got trampled in the escape. But the ones you left by the construction site where you stole the wooden barricades... those made great impressions in the soft dirt around the fence you broke into. You left a partial thumbprint on the chain, by the way."

Another folder opened, another report slapped against the table under the weight of Mac's hand.

"The wood... no prints on that, but our lab confirmed it matched the rest of the barricades from the construction site. Not hard to add those numbers up. Even you could do it."

Don scoffed from his sideline position.

"I'm not so sure, Mac. Genius here is batting a thousand so far in the stupid category."

"Please, my lawyer can get that all tossed in a friggin' minute."

Mac reached for another folder.

"Accelerant... soak some rugs in alcohol. It's a party. Who's gonna notice, right? All you need then is a cigarette or two to drop on your way around, let it slow burn. You didn't even have to light up every single rug... not if the fire spread fast enough."

"I wasn't even at that party."

"You know, people are afraid of your father, Junior, but sometimes anger trumps fear. And we have some very angry people who are ready to swear they saw you at that party, working the room. One of them even remembers seeing you 'drop' a bottle of booze all over the rug at the front of the warehouse."

Junior eyed him, but Mac didn't blink. The truth was, even if they could only testify to small bits and pieces of the night, the cumulative effect was that the witness list Don and the other detectives had culled from their eyewitness statements was full of heartbroken, angry survivors who wanted someone to pay for what they'd been through. They'd be scared when they heard the Delasentora name, but they were also motivated. Some of them would step up, and Mac only needed a few.

The thought of those who wanted some kind of justice to come from all of this made him spare a glance toward the two-way mirror, his mind wander a split second to how Jo was holding up on the other side. Then Mac reached for another folder and opened it up.

"Here's my favorite, though. You left DNA behind, Junior."

"Oh, yeah," Don said, chuckling. "This one is a grade-a knucklehead."

Mac reached out then and grabbed Ramon Junior's hands, pinning them to the desk. Don stepped forward and scanned the exposed skin as Ramon struggled.

"You can't do that."

Don took hold of Junior's left arm, ignoring the younger man's protests.

"Outside edge. There you go."

Mac glanced down and saw the thin red line where one of the large, jagged rocks Junior had used to keep the barricades in places had cut his hand.

"You know how I know it was your DNA? Because before your father could buy you ought of that assault charge in Los Angeles, the cops took your blood off the clothes they booked into evidence and put you in the system."

And finally, Ramon Delasentora Jr. looked like a man who knew he was in trouble.

"But your biggest mistake, even worse than not making sure the other piece of garbage you were trying to kill was actually inside, was that you were stupid enough to kill a kid whose parents are NYPD and FBI. There isn't a single fiber or piece of dirt we didn't turn over, Junior, and we have your ass. So you better start thinking about your options. Because this..."

And now came the part Mac had been dreading, because he knew at some point he might have to go to the last folder in order to break Junior down completely, and now he had to go in for the kill. So he steeled himself and opened the file and began placing the photos of the eight dead victims on the table.

"And this... and this... and this... and this... and this... and this... and this... aren't gonna get you much sympathy when your lawyer begs them not to lock you up in Attica and throw away the damn key."

Junior fought it, but his eyes became transfixed by the carnage he had wrought. The bodies weren't all as badly burned as Tyler's had been, and some showed wounds from the fight to stay alive, but all of them reflected the horror that had been those last awful minutes of what had begun for these kids as a night of fun.

"Oh, God..."

The break in Junior's voice was followed by a choked sob. He might have known the things his father had done to become a man of power, but men like Ramon Senior rarely let their children see the process of acquiring that power. Knowing what it meant to take life and seeing that you had done it were two very different things, and Junior was unprepared for the reality of what he'd wrought.

"I didn't... I didn't mean for..."

"What? You didn't mean for all those people to die? Then why, Junior. Why the hell did you block those doors?"

The boy who was now facing very grown-up consequences stared at him, speechless, unable to find a way to explain his irrational act.

"You're a murderer, Ramon. You killed eight good kids. Look at them! Look at what you did to them!"

And Junior was done. His hands pressed into his face even as tears snuck from underneath to drip down to table.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I needed him to believe in me. I needed him to believe in me. I'm sorry."

Standing up straight, Mac collected the photos, shoving them away more for his own sake before he began to break himself. Then he glanced toward Don, who nodded and stepped forward, ready to take the seat opposite Junior to try and get him to write out a formal statement.

Mac turned and headed for the exit, the need to be out of the room overwhelming him. And as he closed the door on Ramon Junior's continued pleas for mercy, he leaned back against the strength of the hallway wall, his body suddenly feeling leaden and exhausted, his eyes shutting, trying to push away the memories the photos had brought back.

He didn't think he would ever be able to forget the look on Jo's face as he'd raced toward her, her lungs straining for breath, her body too paralyzed from shock to respond. And though he'd forced himself to do his job in the hours that followed, the knowledge that one of the bodies he was circling was her son had torn open something in Mac he wasn't sure would ever heal.

Drawing in a deep breath, he opened his eyes and forced himself to leave the comfort of the wall's seemingly unbreakable support and step forward, his hand reaching for the observation room door.

She was huddled in the corner, her hand over her mouth, but if she was crying, it was absent of sound, the pain too big to even allow that expenditure of energy needed to express itself. She must have turned the speaker off before she'd moved, because he could see Don talking but couldn't hear the sound. Mac moved as quickly as he could, the door closed behind him, the space that separated them vanishing in a flash of footsteps.

Jo said nothing as his arms reached for her, drawing her against him, her only response a physical one as her hands gripped at his shirt like she might not be able to hold on tightly enough any other way.

"It was for nothing," she said finally, the whisper sending the tickle of her breath against his neck. "He killed my baby for nothing."

And what could he say to that? It was senseless... a child trying to prove himself when he was too inept and inexperienced to begin to understand what he was doing or what the cost could be. But what came next would matter. Mac had a plan and now that he had Ramon Junior in hand, he was going to do everything he could to see that Tyler and Natalie and the others were not forgotten as the rest of this dreadful hand they'd been dealt was played.

So instead of saying anything, he did what he'd done so often since the moment their world had fallen apart... he held her as tightly as he could and tried to will his strength into her.

Finally he felt her grip begin to loosen, and when Jo moved to step back, Mac released his own hold just enough to allow her space without letting her go.

"When are you calling Ramon Senior in?"

Her voice sounded so tired, and all Mac wanted to do in that moment was take her home and hide her away from all of this. But he knew his window was narrow at best... if he didn't work his plan now, the FBI would swoop in before he had the chance to get Senior in an interrogation room. He'd need the feds to pull this off if it worked, but Mac wanted it done on NYPD turf.

"While Don's in with him."

Jo nodded and looked at him intently.

"Leave him alone in the hallway for a minute before you take him in."

Mac looked at her, confused. He knew her too well to think she was planning something like Russ had, but Jo also knew they couldn't risk any appearance that suggested she'd played a part in this investigation.

She must have sensed his concern, because her left hand slipped up to his chest, her right touching against his cheek.

"You trust me?"

Mac brought his left hand up so it rested atop hers over his chest.

"With my life."

"I can't be in that room with you... but I can help you get him. And out in that hallway, I'm just a grieving mother looking for answers."

He wasn't sure how he'd manage it, how he'd get Ramon Delasentora to let his lawyer out of his sight in the middle of a police station. But Mac knew that when it came to playing a suspect, his partner was a master.

So he'd find a way. And he and Jo would finish this together.

* * *

><p>AN - Shorter than usual or you'd have been waiting another week at least for an update. I'll deal with Senior next time, and then Mac and Jo can deal with the rest of the things they can't get to just yet.


	7. Chapter 7

The public precinct hallway was always bustling with people moving to and from the bullpen to the interrogation rooms, the file room, the report writing room, and the coffeepot. Jo had been introduced to it on her very first day with the NYPD just hours after she nervously made her way into the crime lab to start her new job and suddenly found herself staring at a dead body.

Maybe it was the immediacy of that case, the fact that the victim had died in "their house," but all the natural unease that she'd walked in with for a first day of work had evaporated before the morning was out. As he took control of the scene, Mac had immediately struck her as a man she could respect and build a relationship with, Danny and Sheldon had easily become teasing partners in crime, and Don Flack had proven himself to be a solid investigator. Even Adam, easy mark that he was, had a clear role in her life by day's end.

It had taken her longer to connect with Lindsay, but only because the younger woman had been struggling with some pretty intense demons in those early days, and with Sid because it had taken another case or two to get her into the morgue. But far more quickly than she'd expected, the small group had welcomed her into their work family even if past experience and the dark cloud of her last days at the Bureau had made Jo a little bit cautious about forging ahead into new friendships with her coworkers and a challenging but highly enjoyable partnership with Mac.

Their cases often brought her back to the precinct and the now familiar hallway on the far left side of the building. As you walked down it, you could see into the interrogation rooms via windows, at least, into most of them. Two of the rooms were set up so that no one could see in them any way other than the observation room's two-way mirror. That's where they generally interviewed higher profile suspects or witnesses that they knew might need to remain confidential until they were revealed to defense counsel in discovery or when they were trying to turn suspects in a case against each other.

She sat on a bench in the long walkway now, watching as the busy commotion she was normally a part of went on as usual. Jo heard a set of patrol officers laugh as they headed back out to the streets, some funny story clearly just shared. She watched a teenage girl make her way from interview three, head and eyes down, teeth sinking into her lip as a detective brought her out to meet up with her very angry parents. She heard the words "spray paint" and "cheerleader's car" shoot through the air via raised voices and guessed the worst punishment the teen would be facing was from her parents no matter what the police and the D.A. decided to do with her case.

How many times had she known a parent was waiting out here on one of these benches hoping the worst news they'd get was that their child, whatever age, had vandalized a car or gotten caught with a beer underage? And every time, because it was just the nature of the work she did, the news was so much worse than those mothers and fathers ever wanted to let themselves imagine... daughters raped, sons beaten for twenty dollars and pair of tennis shoes, children lost to drunk drivers, random violence, or the murderous jealousy of someone they'd trusted.

It was hard for her to imagine what thoughts were going through the mind of the father she was lying in wait for now. Jo knew from the numerous FBI files she'd read on Ramon Delasentora Sr. that he was vicious and seemingly without conscience when it came to protecting his powerbase and his drug trafficking empire. But she also knew he'd gone to great lengths to keep his son on a different path. Ramon Junior had gone to the best private schools in New York, had traveled the world, going to more historic places than most kids read about in their text books. There was even an unsubstantiated rumor that a young runner in the Delasentora family had met a swift end after breaking the rules and taking Junior out to party, exposing him to several low-level dealers and the girls who followed them around, hunting for a meal ticket and protection.

But Mac had been right about the psychology of men like Ramon Junior. Whether they were embraced by their fathers or held at arms length, they often grew up with an inferiority complex, a feeling that because their fathers had purposely made sure they never had to work as hard for what they wanted, their fathers somehow thought they were less than. It was a universal phenomenon, too. She'd seen it working cases in other countries and cultures... some time-worn instinctual battle between fathers and sons in which logic couldn't intervene.

Cop instinct told Jo that the son had not run to his father for help after his plan for revenge had gone so tragically awry. If he had, Junior would probably be on a plane to South America instead of sitting in one of the precinct interrogation rooms. And to be honest, she was a little surprised they had gotten away with arresting their prime suspect without someone calling his father and alerting him, resulting in a high-priced lawyer dropping on their doorstep before they could ask a single question.

That was likely a result of Junior's ego issues. His own small band of associates had probably heard him posture about how the cops couldn't possibly have anything on him, how he would be home in a few hours, and those same dealers, runners, and enforcers he ran with were terrified of what would happen if Ramon Senior found out they'd played any part in what would now befall his son. It was a case where silence was truly golden... and possibly the difference between life and death.

So likely, the drug kingpin's first real sense of concern had come from Mac's phone call informing Senior that they needed his assistance to clear up some details about a matter concerning his son. That was how Mac had phrased it. "We've been speaking with your son, and I think you could help us clear up some details about this matter if you're willing to come down to the precinct." Ramon Senior had said he was on his way, and they both knew that meant his lawyer, Ward Brevington, would also be glued to his side. Brevington had done a miraculous job of keeping his client out of courtrooms for more than a decade, and there was no doubt he'd be bellowing about injustice and false arrest two seconds through the door, which would, they hoped, result in a chance to leave Jo alone with the notorious Ramon Delasentora.

The question was, who was he as a father? Was the attempt to push his only son out of the business that had made him millions real or had it been a ploy to look like a good father while awaiting the inevitable? And even if it was genuine, even if every hope he'd ever had for his child was the same as every parent-a son who was respectable, who didn't make a living from crime, who never even tried an illegal drug let alone sold one-what value did this father put on his son's life now that he had fallen so far?

"You expect me to believe that my client did not ask for an attorney?"

Jo took a deep breath and fought the urge to glance down the hallway as the raised voices reached her ears. Then she heard Flack's response and knew their plan had been set in motion.

"He did not, and you can hear the tape yourself if you like."

"Oh, believe me, detective, I insist. And you damn well better hope it's as clear cut as you're implying."

"Mr. Delasentora," Flack said, refusing to acknowledge Brevington's idle threat, "if you could just have a seat in the hallway, I'll let Detective Taylor know you're here."

"I want to see my son."

"Sorry, sir, but your son is an adult. While he's being interviewed, you have no legal right to see him."

Jo spared a glance that direction, feeling safe with all the men engaged in conversation. Ramon Senior was about to protest, but Brevington put his hand on his client's arm."

"Ramon, let me handle this. Chances are this is all just a smoke screen to harass you anyway."

Her eyes dropped as Flack motioned toward the hallway benches, and then she saw him lead the still protesting attorney toward the opposite side of precinct, where the entry doors to the interview rooms were safe from public access. Ramon Senior, who looked nothing like the ruthless drug lord he was-$2,000 suit clinging to his fit physique, his hair grayed at the temples, but still full and well styled-walked about halfway down the hall and sank down two benches from where Jo sat.

Uniformed officers passed by, detectives hurried to get some fresh coffee before they had to take another call, and Jo Danville sat mere feet away from father of the boy who had killed her son.

The faith Mac had shown in her was magnified now that she was sitting in the reality of the situation. It would've been so easy if she'd been looking for retribution, if vengeance was her goal. Though there were half a dozen officers spread throughout the corridor, not a one of them could have gotten to her if she were concealing a weapon and ready to strike. Especially after the stunt Russ had pulled, it spoke volumes about how deep the trust ran between them, and she felt her resolve strengthen as the truth of that wrapped around her heart, giving comfort to what felt permanently broken inside.

Mac needed justice here. He needed it for her. The idea of failing, of there being no "solved" electronically stamped across Tyler's file... she knew him well enough to know the weight that had put on his shoulders. And tied as her hands were, Jo felt a need she couldn't even put into words to do something to help free him from that burden.

She sighed deeply and sat her purse beside her, pulling out her phone. She sent a text she genuinely needed to send, alerting her mother that an FBI agent would probably be at the apartment soon to collect Russ, and that it was fine to let him leave. Mac had told her that once they had Ramon Senior in the interrogation room, he was going to have Flack call the local director and pull him in the loop. They were going to need the bureau's help if it went the way they hoped, and Jo wanted Russ to know what was happening so he could see firsthand that the person who had killed their son was suffering consequences for it, even if it wasn't the eye-for-an-eye justice he'd envisioned.

Text sent, Jo went to put her phone away, but instead tipped her purse so it spilled off of the bench. Keys, sunglasses, assorted small notebooks and slips of paper flew across the floor, and as she leaned down to start trying to reassemble it, she let out a sound that could convey nothing but frustration. Then she started pulling the papers into some kind of order so she could shove them back into her bag.

"May I help?"

She looked up and found Ramon Delasentora Sr. looking at her, his hands already working to gather up the notebooks and her keys, which had gone furthest, skidding along the tile.

"Thank you," she offered, her voice needing no acting on her part to sound broken and exhausted.

Her scattered purse contents retrieved, Jo moved to stand, but the man took hold of the bag in one hand and her arm with the other. She let him help her back to her seat and then took possession of her woven satchel when he presented it to her.

"Thank you again. I'm sorry. I'm sure, this being a police station, you have more on your mind than helping some clumsy woman pick up her purse."

"There's always time to be a gentleman," he said, and then instead of moving back to his prior seat, he sat down at the end of the bench Jo had returned to.

"I don't... I'm not normally such a mess. Well, my office is normally this big a mess, but I don't usually drop my whole life on the floor in public places."

"A lot on your mind as well?"

Jo nodded and took a deep breath.

"My son. He was... killed two nights ago."

She felt the pain of it rise up and try to choke her as she said it out loud, but Jo forced herself to finish the sentence.

"I'm so sorry."

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. She repeated the exercise and then forged on.

"Thank you. Anyway, they called me down here because they said they had some information, but I've just been waiting, and... waiting lets me think too much."

Delasentora nodded.

"I can imagine."

"Do you have children?" she asked, and she watched his head move in the affirmative again.

"Two daughters, both married now. And a son. A son who seems determined to throw away every opportunity I've given him."

"That seems to be how children are. You work so hard to make sure they can have an easier life than you, a better one, and then they resent you for not letting them work hard for things, for wanting to spare them the same mistakes you made."

Another nod, and Jo let a beat of silence pass between them as she readied herself for what came next. She'd made a career on being able to read people quickly, sizing up their weak points, gauging the best method of interrogation in a fraction of the time it took most of her coworkers. And she knew from the small bit of commentary this man had offered to her that he was a father who had genuine love for his children; they weren't just for show. The tidbit about his daughters being married had expressed pride in having raised two girls who had started lives of their own. And his genuine disappointment in his son's current situation, even without knowing all the details, made it clear he had a real desire to see his son living in a different world than the one he knew so well.

She'd had two strategies planned based on how he read to her in the few minutes that she'd have with him. And now that she knew which path to follow, Jo thought about the people she was doing this for... for the son she loved, the girl he had loved, and all the other parents who were grieving today.

And for Mac... who needed this to be over as much as she did.

"If there had been a way for me to save my son... even if it meant trading places with him... dying in that fire instead of him... I would have done it. If someone could give me that chance right now, I'd still say, 'yes, take me instead.' Because he was worth that to me. He was worth everything."

The words were honest to the point of brutality, the wishing that there was some mystic way the universe would hear her and make this right somehow not a manufactured piece of dialogue but a truth from the deepest part of her maternal soul.

"If you love your son... fight for him. Even if he doesn't want you to... do what you have to do and give him every chance you can to grab hold of that life you want him to have. Because believe me, there's nothing worse than being powerless to do something to protect your child."

She was about at her breaking point, and Jo realized she must have looked it because Flack came toward them then, somehow appearing from the end of the hallway.

"Detective," she said, bypassing his name so she wouldn't tip their hand to Ramon Senior. She stood, and Don reached out instinctively to steady her.

"Thanks for waiting. Let's, uh, head back somewhere we can speak in private."

Flack paused as Jo nodded and then he focused his attention on Delasenatora.

"Mr. Brevington is with your son. Detective Taylor will be out to speak with you in just a moment."

Ramon Senior nodded and then looked over at Jo.

"Thank you for the counsel. And again, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," she said, her stomach knotting up from the tension of trying not to fall apart, which Jo knew was coming, and fast.

If she were really just a grieving mother talking to a worried father, she knew she might have wished him good luck or said she'd think good thoughts for him and his son. But the fact that she knew how many sons and daughters this many had taken from others left Jo unable to conjure enough of the cop in her to put that final finishing touch on her encounter with the father of her son's killer.

So instead, she let Don's hand lead her off, back toward the report writing room, away from prying eyes that didn't need to watch her body start to shake as she wobbled toward the room to the rear of the precinct.

"No matter what happens," Flack whispered, his arms pulling her into a loose embrace once they were safely out of sight, "you did everything you could, Jo. Promise me you're gonna remember that, okay?"

She didn't trust her voice, wasn't sure that if she opened her mouth anything but a sob would come out, so Jo nodded against his shoulder and accepted the steadying balance his height and hold provided.

The rest of it lay in Mac's hands... and she hoped for all their sakes that it was almost over.

* * *

><p>Mac stood at the end of the hallway with a folder in his hands, pretending to scan it as he watched Flack lead Jo away from Delasentora. He could see the toll the brief exchange had taken on her, and he felt an ache to go to her that he could barely tamp down. If the stakes weren't so high, nothing could've stopped him.<p>

But the stakes were that high, and so he reminded himself that she was in good hands with Don and then Mac started down the hall toward the man who would decide exactly what kind of punishment Ramon Delasentora Jr. would suffer for his crimes.

"Mr. Delasentora, I'm Detective Mac Taylor. If you'll follow me, we can get this cleared up and get you on your way."

"And my son?"

"He's still speaking with your attorney," Mac said, not revealing that Brevington was only just now being allowed in to see Ramon Junior after a few rather lengthy manufactured delays.

Ramon Senior followed him into one of the confidential interview rooms, Mac fully aware that Junior was one room over, likely spilling his guts to his lawyer about the confession he'd already written up.

"What exactly is it my son has done, Detective?"

"Your son attended a party the other night, briefly, and we wanted to get some information from him on what happened there before he left."

"Was there some problem at this party?"

"There was, yes. A fire broke out some time after your son left. Several people died in this fire, many more were injured. And we're just trying to gather as much information as we can."

"My son is in college, Detective. He goes to a lot of parties. I'm not sure what it is you think I can help you with here. He certainly doesn't share the details of his social life with me."

"Well, can you tell me, has he ever mentioned someone named Tuffi? Uh, this man?"

Mac pulled out a photo of Tuffi from the folder he was holding and slipped it across the table.

"Frequents fraternity parties, apparently. Small-time drug dealer. He was trying to muscle in on the row's trade. We think he may have been the target."

Ramon Senior studied the photo a moment and then looked Mac straight in the eye.

"Detective, how about you and I not play any games here? You are fully aware of who I am, and you didn't call me down here to ask me about my son's friends. So what is it you want to know?"

The question was asked in the same calm voice Senior had been using since he'd walked through the doors of the precinct, and so Mac responded in kind, his voice measured.

"Your son started a fire in an effort to kill this Tuffi over drug sales in the frat houses at NYU. Only he didn't kill his rival. He killed eight people... eight kids who were just living their lives trying to enjoy some fun on the weekend before they went back to classes on Monday."

"My son is not that stupid."

There was an edge to it, but there was also a sense of bravado, and Mac could feel the dishonesty of it. Senior wanted to have faith in his kid, but he didn't; history had taught him better than that.

"Your son was selling drugs from your network right here in New York without you knowing about. He convinced people who work for you to keep you in the dark. And then he tried to be a big man and show you how tough he was, so he started this fire to defend his territory."

Mac didn't set the photos of the victims out one by one as he had for Junior. This man had seen enough death in his life to be unfazed by them. Instead he just plopped them on the table as an exclamation point to his next statement.

"And Junior confessed. He soaked the rugs in alcohol, dropped cigarettes on them to smolder and then... dead bodies everywhere."

There was a long moment where the pieces clicked, when Senior realized how deep the foundation of betrayal was that lay under his son's downfall. His men hadn't told him about any of it... not about the dealing or Tuffi, not about the fire, not about Junior's arrest, and it meant that his own organization had allowed this to happen. There was probably a lot of arrogance to blame for that, low-level hoods who wanted to make good and thought getting in with the possible future head of the business was the way to go. But there were also probably, among those men who had kept their silence, loyalists to Senior who felt Ramon Junior was a liability to them all... and the sooner he took himself out of the game, the better.

Window open, Mac picked up a sheet of paper from the folder and read from the page.

"A man has to prove himself. I just wanted to show my father that I was like him, that I could handle my business."

"He... he really confessed?"

Mac sat the handwritten sheet down on the table. He saw the acceptance on Senior's face as he recognized that the writing was his son's.

"He confessed, and he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He's damn lucky New York doesn't currently utilize the death penalty, because he'd be a shoe-in."

"I want to see my son now," Senior demanded, standing up, his cool facade slipping.

"You can you see your son after he's booked for eight counts of first-degree murder, fourteen counts of attempted murder, and arson. And you can do it during normal visiting hours at Rikers."

Picking up the page from the confession, Mac shoved it back into the folder along with the photos and started toward the door. His hand was barely on the knob when he heard Delasenatora shout out his name.

"He didn't mean to kill those people. He couldn't have."

"He still killed them," Mac noted, turning back to face this man who had become one of the most wanted criminals in the country even as he stood right out in the open, defying capture. "No one is just going to forget that those kids are dead because of something your son is responsible for starting."

"But the intent..."

"I'm sure your lawyer can confirm this for you, but blocking the exit doors to trap the partygoers inside, placing the accelerant? That all speaks to intent, whether he killed the right victim or not."

"He's a stupid boy! A stupid child who made a mistake."

"A costly mistake, Mr. Delasentora, one he's going to have to pay for. And don't underestimate us. We have his DNA at the crime scene, we have fingerprints, a match to his shoes, eyewitnesses. Your son is going to prison."

Mac moved to walk out once again, but this time he stopped on his own and moved the few steps back toward the table.

"He cried. When he realized what he'd done, Ramon Junior cried. So the best thing you can do for him is make sure your attorney tries to get the best deal he can. Because your son? He isn't you. He's not built for survival in a place like Sing Sing."

Ramon Senior held Mac's gaze for a beat, and then another. And then he closed his eyes and shook his head. When his eyes opened again, the man sat back down in his chair and calmly slid closer to the table.

"What would be the best deal you think my son could get?"

Mac dropped the folder down onto the table and took up his seat again, mirroring Ramon Senior's pose.

"If we had something to offer the FBI, they could take jurisdiction in the case. It's likely that, for the right incentive, they would be willing to take manslaughter pleas in the deaths and drop the rest of the charges. He could be sentenced to a federal prison then, hand-selected for the staff's ability to protect him; none of your old enemies looking for payback, no street hustlers looking to make a name for themselves by going after Ramon Delasentora's son. And even with multiple manslaughter charges, he might see the light of day again, while he's still young enough to have some kind of a life."

"And this incentive? I'm sure you didn't get me down here without some idea of how much would be needed to make this happen. So what will it take if I want to ensure Ramon Junior secures this deal?"

"Simple," Mac said, his hands folding over each other on the table. "You."

* * *

><p>Jo watched as Russ listened intently to his director and the U.S. Attorney who had been assigned to the case detail what they had in mind. Ramon Junior would still go to prison, but to a medium-security federal prison in upstate New York. He would serve no less than 15 years, but would accept a full sentence of 35 years on multiple pleas of manslaughter in the first degree. In exchange for that deal, Ramon Senior would plead guilty to tax evasion, several violations of the RICO statues, and he would name four court officials he'd been bribing over the years. The plea meant that a good decade of Senior's life would be spent behind bars, and while it wasn't the dream conviction in either case, it gave the FBI ten years to try to dismantle what would surely be a weaker drug syndicate without the savvy of Ramon Senior there to protect it. And there was still a chance they could find evidence in those years to add to his sentence by closing cases on some of the numerous murders and other crimes they knew the drug lord had committed.<p>

It was imperfect justice, but it was a huge blow to the very industry that had led to Tyler and Natalie's murders. And even though Jo knew he probably hated the idea of their son's killer ever having the chance to walk free, Russ nodded his acceptance of the terms.

While the FBI went off to finalize the deal and arrange for transport of both their prisoners, Jo walked up to her ex-husband, her hand falling gently against his arm.

"You need to let this be enough, Russ. Let this be the end of it. Because I couldn't bear it if I had to watch you destroy yourself over this. You're the only piece of Tyler I have left."

He leaned into her, his voice dropping low as he spoke.

"I'm trying, Jo. I really am."

"Try harder," she implored, the real risk that he might be the kind of parent who couldn't survive this sort of loss too obvious after his earlier behavior to be ignored. "I can't lose anyone else. So do it for me if you can't do it for yourself."

Russ nodded and stepped back, glancing toward the precinct doorway where his brother stood waiting.

"I'm gonna head out. I'll call you tomorrow?"

Jo nodded and offered a wave to Ben as Russ turned and headed for the door. Then she glanced over at Flack, who was sitting at his desk, his expression troubled. She moved to the chair at his right and sat down.

"You okay?"

Don nodded and looked up at her.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Just... long couple of days, right? I know you must be ready to get out of here, though."

"Oh, you think?"

And somehow that made them both laugh, just a little, and the deep tension that had filled the air for hours was broken.

"Don, I wanted to ask you... some of Tyler's friends are going to be pallbearers, and I thought, if you wouldn't mind..."

"I'd be honored," he said, sparing her from finishing the question. "You just let me know where and when you need me, and I'm there."

She offered him a grateful smile and then her eye was drawn to Mac, who was walking toward her after what she imagined had been a rather lengthy lecture from the chief of detectives. Their boss was less than thrilled that Mac had waited to bring in the FBI and even more pissed that he hadn't been kept in the loop. But the plea deals were huge wins for the NYPD and the FBI, and so the reality was, there wasn't much the chief could do but bluster and wag his finger, not if he wanted the public to stay focused on the good job they'd all done and not on why a detective who'd closed a major case so quickly was being disciplined.

"I don't know about you," he said as he walked up and leaned against Flack's desk. "But I would love to be done with this day now."

"We were just discussing that. Why don't you guys get outta here?" Flack offered. "I'll be around if the brass or the feds need any paper cleaned up."

Jo looked up at Mac, who nodded and stood up to his full height. He reached into his pocket for his keys and handed them to her, and she took them in hand as she rose up out of the chair.

"I just need to go over one last thing with Don. Meet you at the car?"

She agreed and said her goodbyes to Flack, and then Jo took the back route to the parking garage. As she passed the confidential interview rooms, she cast a grateful look up, thanking whatever force had helped her make it through this day, minefield it had become, and let her see the other side of it.

Her son's killer was going to pay for his crime. And it had to be enough, just like she'd told Russ. Because the truth was, nothing that happened to either of the Delasentora men could bring Tyler back. And short of that, nothing else could truly ever equal what she had lost.

The relative quiet of the Avalanche was a welcome change after hours of the buzz and hum of the precinct, and Jo leaned her head back against the seat, the silence she now dreaded broken enough by the screech of tires in the garage and car doors opening and closing that she felt safe from the danger of memories or her mind playing tricks on her.

When Mac opened the driver's side door and climbed in, Jo glanced over and saw exhaustion wash over him. Her hand reached for his, and as their fingers laced together, he turned to her.

"Is it okay if we don't go back right away?" she asked, and at Mac's furrowed brow, she went on. "I just... I think I need to not have to talk about funerals or flights for relatives or hymns for the service for a while. I just... can we just go somewhere that it's only you and me, for just a minute?"

Mac squeezed her hand and then he let it go to start the engine.

"More than a minute if you need it."

Then he smiled at her, despite how tired he was. And even though pain weighed down nearly every space in her heart, Jo felt some corner of it brighten, the light somehow reaching that lone space beyond all the darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

Jo leaned against frame of the open balcony doors in Mac's apartment and stared out at the collage of windows across the way. Families were settling down for dinner in some of the dwellings, students struggled with homework in others, and in one she saw a young woman sitting alone, drinking a glass of wine, the repetitive movements of her hand brushing a tissue against her cheeks evidence that she was crying. Was she watching a sad movie, Jo wondered? Or had someone torn away a piece of her heart and she was now trying to find some way to grieve the loss?

"You ready?"

Mac's hand made its way to her shoulder as his voice reached her ear. She wasn't, really. The idea of food was wholly unappealing. But Mac had done the math and figured out how long it had been since she'd likely eaten anything, and she'd watched worry for her add to the exhaustion he was already carrying as they drove away from the precinct. So when he'd suggested picking up soup at the deli where they ate at least three times a week, she had agreed.

Jo turned and saw he'd set up their meal on the large ottoman in the elevated loft area of his place, the dark leather wingchairs that screamed "Mac Taylor" set on either side. She gave him a small smile and walked to the seat where a steaming bowl of chicken and wild rice soup waited for her; Mac's potato chowder sat in front of the other chair.

"Your mom and Ellie okay?"

"Yeah," she answered as she sank down. "Ellie sent Brianna home for a while. She said she wants some alone time with her grandma, so they're ordering in and watching a movie."

Mac nodded and went to work on his soup, and Jo picked up her spoon and willed herself to take a bite of her own. If she could get one bite down, she figured, she could do more than one. And if she didn't want Mac to start waiting for her to collapse, then she needed him to see she was still eating and taking care of herself.

The chicken and wild rice soup had quickly become a favorite of hers following her start at the lab, and one day when she'd had such a sore throat she could barely talk, Mac had surprised her with a big to-go bowl of it, a cup of hot tea, and an order to take a break and relax a little. The memory of that day, of how nice it felt to have someone look out for her, filled her with a warmth that mirrored the heat of the soup and helped Jo to make a steady effort to give her body some necessary sustenance.

They ate to the backdrop of the city noise floating through the open balcony doors, Mac not forcing any chatter. And when she'd made it through two-thirds of her soup, Jo sat down her spoon and leaned back in the chair, her eyes drifting shut as the comfort of Mac's home let her relax and breathe deeply for the first time all day.

She must have drifted off at some point, because the next thing she knew, Mac was closing the doors against the chill that was settling in over the darkening skyline. She looked down and saw that their dishes were cleared, and as she blinked and leaned forward, trying to get her bearings, Mac slipped down on to the ottoman and took hold of her hands.

"You were only asleep about forty-five minutes or so. I figured I'd just let you rest while I cleaned up."

Jo nodded and squeezed his right hand, and then she thought about the look she'd seen on his face earlier in the car, the weariness that was almost a trademark of legendary detective Mac Taylor deeper and more palpable than she could ever remember seeing it before.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her left hand reaching up to touch down against his cheek. "And don't just dismiss it. I get to worry about you, too."

He smiled, a slight chuckle rumbling out of his chest. His free hand reached up and took hold of the fingers that rested on his skin, and he pulled her hand in his until they lay entwined against his chest.

"I've hated suspects before. I've wanted to hurt them back. But this..."

Mac sighed and let his eyes fall, and she fought the urge to break the connections between their hands to caress his face and try to bring his gaze back to hers.

"I wanted him to pay for making you live with this. I wanted to hurt him for putting that picture in your head. And I..."

He stopped again, his voice taking on a deeper tone than usual, the natural gravelly quality sharper and more distinct. And then his head inched up, and Jo could see there not just the hurt Mac carried for her but the pain this case had let loose in him again after being held at bay for so long.

"I thought it would help more... that this time, I could do something. I could find the bad guy and put him away. But... it's still too late. The damage is done and I can't do anything to erase it."

Jo slipped from the chair, her weight dropping onto her knees as she pulled her hands free from Mac's solely to wrap her arms around him.

_"I think the worst part for him was that he felt powerless. He couldn't do anything but try to survive it, but nothing could erase it or take away any of the pain he felt... that anyone felt. And you know Mac... you can imagine the toll that took on him."_

It had been a rare moment of confession from Flack as they'd shared a late dinner one night. Mac had begged off the invitation to join them, wanting to personally be the one to go and talk to their victim's family and let them know what they'd found in the case... a father of three who'd been gunned down in a robbery at the subway.

As the conversation played back in her head, Jo tightened her hold on the man who had gone from stranger to treasured friend to an undefined something more in the space of a calendar year. She felt Mac's arms encircling her, drawing her even closer to him, and Jo swallowed against the tightness in her throat wishing she could think of some magical combination of words to tell him how much he had done to mitigate the damage, to make it possible that there was even a thought in her head that it was possible she could someday leave the overwhelming grief she felt for Tyler in the past because the man who'd taken his life had been brought to justice.

But she wasn't sure how to put thought to language to make him understand that, not when she could see how shaken Mac was by everything they'd been through, not just today but since that first moment in the warehouse when he'd run to her side. What Jo did know completely as they sat there together, holding on to each other for fear that they'd fall down without the support, was that in spite of all the awful, difficult days that remained in front of them, even though it was clear that Mac was right and that so much of what needed to be said between them did have to wait, one thing couldn't go unspoken for another moment.

She leaned back from him only enough so that their faces were separated by a nearly transparent space, her hands moving to his cheeks so that she could make sure he saw her as he heard her speak.

"Do you have any idea how much I love you?"

The idea of Mac Taylor crying was so foreign to her, to her image of him, that Jo felt herself gasp at the sight of the twin tracks of moisture on his cheeks.

"You and Ellie... you're all the hope I have in the world right now, Mac. And I need you to know that. Do you... know that?"

She felt his hands move to her face, their foreheads touching. His eyes were closed now against the emotion that was overtaking them both, and she was about to say it again because suddenly nothing seemed more important than for Mac to understand this one fundamental thing before they took another step together through what came next. Then he lifted his head and opened his eyes.

"I know it," he whispered, and she felt her breath release the tight chamber of her chest. Then he repeated the words and pulled her back into him, and Jo went, burying her face in his chest as his arms tightened around her.

She didn't know how much time passed between that moment and the feeling of him standing up, drawing her with him. But Jo did know that there was something renewed in Mac as he lifted them up, a steel returned to him that she knew she and all their friends depended on because it had never let them down.

He had never let them down.

"I love you back."

The words reached her as he whispered them in her ear, and then she felt the press of his lips against the side of her head. And the tenderness of the gesture, the sweetness of the words somehow shifted the dynamic between them once more, the strength of his hold on her a signal that it was okay again for her to be the one in need.

Their physical position shifted, too, Mac turning them so that he could sink down into the chair she'd been in most of the night. His hands brought her with him, drawing her into his lap, and when he was sure she had surrendered, he wrapped his arms around her.

Jo rested her cheek against his shoulder, one arm draped behind his neck, her other hand sitting against his chest. She felt a slight pressure against her forehead as Mac dropped another kiss near her hairline.

"We'll have a chance to be happy, Jo. I know we will. We just have to hang on to each other, okay? Till we get to the other side of this... and then we'll have our chance."

She nodded against him, and let her eyes fall shut as the rhythm of Mac's breathing and the feel of his arms keeping her locked with his body invited her to once again take a deep inhale and let herself relax into the safety and comfort of his home... of him. And Mac's promise followed Jo into sleep.

* * *

><p>It was a beautiful day, which seemed almost cruel given that it was the day Tyler Josephson's body would be released for burial, the beginning of the official process of ritual and ceremony that went along with death.<p>

Mac let his eyes drift from the window to where Jo still lay asleep in his bed, and he shook his head, knowing that wishing it away wouldn't help. The day was here, the rest was coming, and all he could do was stand by her.

He'd held her for hours last night as moonlight took over the apartment, the intensity of their conversation having kept him from ever turning on the lights he'd meant to reach. Only when he was sure that moving her wouldn't wake her had he stood and carried Jo to his room.

He'd made quick work of phoning her mother, late as it was, to let Paulette know they weren't coming back to the apartment that night. He also let her know the details of the conversation he'd had with Don after Jo had gone out to the car, and then Paulette had assured him she and Ellie were fine and that they should take all the time they needed before they came home.

All the time they needed... he wasn't sure what that would mean, really, how many weeks and months would go by before they were anywhere close to taking a step away from Tyler's loss. But Mac knew that no matter the things he couldn't do, and the weight of them sat heavily on his shoulders, that was just who he was... there were two things only he could do for Jo, and he would do them with everything he had.

He would love her and he would let her love him back.

It was such an overused word, really, people declaring their love for things and people these days the way they changed their clothes. But the four letters spun together still meant something to him that was unique amongst all other feelings. It was a mixture of so many things... not just the head-spinning sensation of infatuation and desire, but of friendship and trust, of vulnerability and strength and a connection that somehow defied all those words to convey its entirety.

And yet even if he couldn't explain it or list its merits, Mac knew in the deepest part of his being that what he and Jo had built was that... the thing that encompassed the full definition of that little overused word, and when she'd spoken it to him last night, when he'd said it back, it had somehow empowered him and given him the clarity to know that it was, really, all she needed from him. Everything else swirling in his head about what he should've been able to do or what he wanted to do became only small components of the larger, far more important place he occupied in her life.

And he knew, too, that someday there would be time to dream of the better side of that love... that enormous, astonishing thing they'd built almost without realizing it was happening. He'd promised her that and whispered his vision of it to her in those precious moments that had just been them, just Mac and Jo finding a way to continue being even if the world had stopped making sense outside of the small pocket of safety they'd created for each other.

Mac stepped away from the window and moved to his closet, grabbing a bag inside. He quietly folded in clothes and then took that and the garment bag he'd already packed with a few of his suits out to the living room. When he was finished, he returned to his room and settled back down on the bed. Jo stirred but didn't wake, and his arm snaked out, his hand coming to rest in the curve of her waist as she lay on her side facing him.

_"You and Ellie... you're all the hope I have in the world right now, Mac."_

All he'd been able to see since they'd found Tyler's body was how life changed in the most awful ways in an instant. The tragedy that had befallen Jo's family had ripped open the scar of his own loss, though he'd have denied it if anyone asked him simply because that was who he was, how his mind worked. He'd had his chance to mourn, to rebuild; this time, it wasn't about him.

But it turned out that it was, he realized, by virtue of the thing he'd remembered last night as Jo had pleaded with him to hear her declaration. Life changed in the most amazing ways in an instant, too. And even if he hadn't realized it, if it had taken him months to even suspect, his life had begun to change the moment he'd heard her voice ring out with a "hi" from the elevated walkway of the crime lab and his eyes had followed the sound to find his new partner standing there.

He had learned to hope again on his own in the years after Claire... the patient support of his friends and colleagues pushing him along when he'd felt barely able to move forward. But Mac knew that the effort hadn't been truly fulfilled until Jo had opened up a door he didn't even know was sealed off, the one that had kept even Peyton somehow just far enough away from him that he could be hurt but not torn apart by her loss.

That was all gone now, and the pain he felt for Jo told him that there was no going back. If he ever lost her, it would destroy him. But Mac knew he was willing to fight anything that tried to take her from him, even this terrible darkness that was trying to settle over their lives.

"That's a serious face."

Mac felt himself come back to the room, back to the bed and the woman lying beside him, and he smiled. She had slept through the night, no bad dreams, nothing startling her from her sleep.

"More serious than usual?" he asked, and she smiled slightly.

"Little bit."

"Probably 'cause there's something I need to tell you."

Jo sighed and rolled onto her back, then she pulled herself up to a seated position and looked back over at him.

"Tell."

"Remember yesterday when I said I had to talk to Don before we left the precinct?"

She nodded.

"I knew he and the team wanted to spend some time with you, and now that the case is closed... he was gonna call everyone and have them meet up at your place today. Is that gonna be okay with you?"

She reached over, her hand drawing down his face quickly before she pulled her fingers through her hair.

"It sounds so silly, but I... I miss them. Isn't that crazy?"

"I promise I won't tell anyone you said that."

Jo laughed and then glanced over at the clock on his bedside table.

"We should probably get back. I don't want Ellie to start to worry."

Mac nodded and stood, motioning toward the bathroom door.

"Clean towels are out if you want to wash your face or anything. And I've got some coffee brewing for the road."

She stood and nodded, pulling her sweater around herself even though it wasn't cold in the room. Then he saw her start toward him, and Mac stopped his movement to the door and opened his arms as she pressed into his body.

"Someday, right?"

He hugged her close and let her feel his confidence as he answered.

"Guaranteed."

Twenty minutes later, they were in the truck headed back to Jo's apartment, his things in the backseat. There was no point in pretending he would be anywhere she wasn't in the next few days. He'd already alerted the chief and told him the time off was nonnegotiable. That's when he'd found out that not only was his request approved, it had been anticipated. Crime labs from all over the Eastern Seaboard had called and offered staffers on loan to help cover the time common sense said their team would need to deal with what had happened. It was an amazing show of support, and though not the first time he'd experienced it given the outpouring of manpower and supplies the NYPD had been gifted with in the days after 9/11, it was no less impressive when he realized how well-respected their lab truly was, that so many strangers would reach out to them when only their little corner had been wounded.

When he saw that there were still reporters staked out on Jo's street, though kept well away from the entrance by the uniformed officers who were volunteering their time to do what they could to help, Mac turned the Avalanche and guided it to the back of the building and the entrance to the parking garage. When he pulled into one of the security officer spots, Jo gave him a look and Mac shrugged.

"Doorman told me to feel free for a while, till parking on the street gets back to normal."

It was the kind of thing that, days earlier, she'd have teased him about. But the fact that it drew out her smile just a little even now eased Mac's mind as they headed to the elevators and made their way up to the apartment.

Voices met them before they reached the door, and Mac knew at least some of the team must have already made their way over. Jo fished her keys from her purse and let them in, and they were welcomed by the sound of Lucy giggling as Ellie chased her toward the hallway.

"Mom."

Ellie stopped and moved into Jo, and Mac closed the door as the Danville girls shared a tight embrace.

"How's my girl today?"

"Okay," Ellie answered, her shoulders moving in a shrug. "How are you?"

"Okay, too," Jo said, and then she hugged her daughter one more time.

"Ellie!"

Lucy's singsong voice rang out from down the hallway, interrupting the moment, and Mac stepped behind Jo to get a better view. The little girl was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, her patience clearly waning as she waited for their game to continue.

"Looks like you're being paged," he said, and Ellie laughed.

"She _really_ likes being chased."

"Then you better get to it," Jo admonished, and they both watched as the teenager raced off to give Lucy a little more of her attention.

"Hey there," Danny said as he stepped forward, an apology emblazoned on his face.

"She's a little wound up this morning. Chocolate milk, but I didn't think saying no to your mom was really an option."

Jo laughed and hugged Danny, patting him on the back.

"Not unless you're her stubborn daughter, it's not."

Mac glanced into the living room and saw that Sid and Adam were engaged in conversation. They both stood, though, as Jo moved toward them and as she settled into a talk with them about their debate on a psychology question, Mac wandered back to the kitchen. That's where he realized they had almost a full complement of team members; Sheldon was busy helping Paulette set up trays of breakfast food and coffee while Lindsay did her best to get in the way.

"You didn't tell me Dr. Hawkes was good in the kitchen, Detective Taylor." Paulette raised a teasing eyebrow at him before she went on. "I might have to have him over more often while I'm up here."

"If visiting more often includes more of this coffeecake, then Mrs. Danville, consider me on a routine schedule," Sheldon replied with a wink.

"Can I come, too?" Lindsay asked, her mouth half full with a piece of pilfered bacon. "I promise not to try to help."

They all shared a laugh, and then Mac helped navigate the trays out to the living room. Ellie had gotten Lucy back down the hall and the younger girl was now busy coloring pictures in the corner while Ellie played a handheld video game with Adam. Mac was just about to ask where Flack was when a knock sounded at the door. Jo excused herself from her hellos to Lindsay and Sheldon and moved to answer it.

"Did someone here order a copy of this weekend's Alabama game?"

"What?" Jo asked, eyeing the DVD in his hand. "How'd you get that?"

"Friend of mine works over at Sports TV. I figured a game was the furthest thing from your mind this weekend, but for a distraction today... well, when I told him it was for two of the prettiest football fans he'd ever meet, he couldn't say no."

Sheldon walked up then and snatched the DVD out of Flack's hand, leaning on his fellow detective's shoulder.

"We figured, watch the game, have some good food, and you know, we could just be here... for as long as you want us."

Jo smiled and walked between them both, one arm around each.

"Better be careful. That could be an awfully long time."

Mac watched his colleagues fight off the sweet-natured embarrassment the men at the lab routinely wore after a comment from Jo, and then Ellie offered to show them where the DVD player was and the whole contingent of off-duty officers and loved ones started to settle down for breakfast and the game.

When he moved behind Jo and let his hands fall at her waist on both sides, she leaned back against him, her eyes never leaving the motley crew assembled just a few feet away.

"How did you know this was exactly what I needed?' she asked, and he let his chin rest on her shoulder, his voice low and meant only for her.

"Because I love you back, remember?"

She turned into him, her arms going around his body as Jo let her head rest against his shoulder.

"I'll never forget."

And then he felt her move away from him and watched as she made her way to the protective circle of their friends and family as they all tried to steal one more little bit of time together before they gathered to say good-bye to the one person who wasn't there.


End file.
